Arts & Events

Theater Review: Golden Thread Premieres Night Over Erzinga

By Ken Bullock
Wednesday September 21, 2011 - 03:24:00 PM

Theater Review: Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup at Berkeley Rep

By Ken Bullock
Wednesday September 21, 2011 - 03:12:00 PM

Theater Review: Remember the Ladies: Poor Players at Unitarian Fellowship and Live Oak Theater

By Ken Bullock
Wednesday September 21, 2011 - 03:08:00 PM

"It's showtime!" declares the young waitress polishing a wine glass. "The restaurant is a theater. The meal's a play. And I'm the actress!" -more-


Around & About Music: Fall Free For All; Inga Swearingen's Swedish Farm Jazz

By Ken Bullock
Wednesday September 21, 2011 - 03:08:00 PM

--The second Fall Free For All, a remarkable free seven hour slew of music, theater and dance performances around the UC campus, put on by Cal Performances, will be held this Sunday from 11-6, featuring such performers as the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony Wind Ensemble, American Bach Soloists, Fratelli marionettes (to St-Saens music), Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Quintet, UC Jazz Faculty, Sarah Cahill, Kirka vocal ensemble, C.K. Ladzekpo & African Music & Dance Ensemble, Los Cenzontles Mexican Music & Dance, SF Opera Adler Fellows, Axis Dance, BATS Improv, UC Departments of Music, Theater, Dance and Performance Studies--and more ... at locations from Sather Gate, Pauley Ballroom, Lower Sproul Plaza, Wheeler Auditorium, Hertz Hall, the Eucalyptus Grove, the Faculty Glade .. Free, no tickets required, food available. Information and schedule: calperformances.org/community/community -more-


Theatre Review: Eye from the Aisle: A DELICATE BALANCE by Edward Albee--if your hair is gray, do not hesitate to get a ticket while they last.

by John A. McMullen II
Monday September 19, 2011 - 10:04:00 AM
Ken Grantham as Tobias and Jamie Jones as Claire.

The Aurora Theatre, in its commitment to a theatre of ideas and the eloquence in drama that explores them, has selected A DELICATE BALANCE by Edward Albee. -more-


Don't Miss This

By Dorothy Snodgrass
Monday September 19, 2011 - 09:47:00 AM

Ah, yes, "the days grow short when you reach September" (Kurt Weill's beautiful "September Song", sung by Walter Huston in 1938.) So, while one "doesn't have time for the waiting game", we're happy to say that this September and October offers several memorable and very enjoyable events, as listed below: -more-


Architecture Review: Flashy Architecture and Bad Urbanism at the Berkeley Art Museum

By Charles Siegel
Sunday September 18, 2011 - 06:21:00 PM

The architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro have unveiled their design for the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) on Oxford Street between Center and Addison. They were required to keep the old UC Printing Plant, and they have added a blob-shaped building coated with zinc.

The new addition is in the avant-gardist style that has been typical of museums since Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum opened in Bilbao in 1997. The Guggenheim looks like abstract art of the 1920s and is coated with titanium. It does not work very well as a museum - some visitors say it gives them vertigo - but it was so new, so different, and so shiny that it drew large numbers of gaping tourists to Bilbao.

Avant-garde architects are like teenagers who dye their hair purple to be different from everyone else, who consider themselves very original but obviously are just imitating the cool kids in their clique. Likewise, the designers of BAM/PFA consider its zinc facade very original but obviously are just imitating Gehry’s titanium.

The inept urbanism of BAM/PFA is much worse than its flashy “blobitecture.” Because the goal is to create a sculptural icon, this sort of design focuses on itself and ignores its urban context. -more-