When the ancient Polynesians invented surfing, they often used a paddle to help them navigate. Fast-forward a few millennia, and Stand-Up Paddleboarding, or SUP, finds itself trendy again. Part of its increasing popularity is that standing upright allows surfers to spot waves more easily and thus catch more of them, multiplying the fun factor. Paddling back to the wave becomes less of a strain as well. The ability to cruise along on flat inland water, surveying the sights, is another advantage. Finally, it’s a good core workout. If you’re sold on the idea, schedule an intro SUP lesson, free with board and paddle rental, and you may find yourself riding the waves like a Polynesian king.More
Many of us remember coming home from our elementary schools with freshly glazed pinchpots, cups, or whatever else our young imaginations could conjure up. Saturday mornings at the Randall Museum can bring that memory back, or create a new one for the youngsters. Ceramics make great gifts — especially on Mothers' and Fathers' Day. Hop on board for the Randall's once-weekly class, and for $6 and two weeks to have your work fired and glazed, you'll have all the materials you need.More
December is almost over - the New Year is coming up and everyone is busy drying off from the rain or holiday shopping. Let's take a look at what's happened this month.
When the San Francisco Arts Commission wanted someone to dress up City Hall for the building's 100th anniversary last year, and become the structure's first artist-in-residence, it took a leap of faith by choosing Jeremy Fish.
December is almost over - the New Year is coming up and everyone is busy drying off from the rain or holiday shopping. Let's take a look at what's happened this month.
Posted
By Quentin Quick
on Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 2:00 PM
Photo Credit: Jose A Guzman Colon
Clockwise: Nomi Malone (April Kidwell) and Cristal Connors (Peaches Christ) vie for top billing in Showgirls! The Musical!, playing at the Victoria Theatre through August 27th.
In 1995 cult flick Showgirls, Vegas stripper Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) dreams of kicking off her hooker heels and thrusting her way into a major burlesque revue. With Showgirls! The Musical!, starring April Kidwell as the exotic dancer turned showgirl, Peaches Christ, who plays Nomi's nemesis Cristal Connors and also directs, realizes her own ambition of bringing a full-length stage show to San Francisco.
In anticipation of Showgirls! The Musical!'s west coast premiere on August 10, Peaches Christ spoke to SF Weekly about making the show her own, why the film that it's based on continues to titillate and why her new ice cream flavor is more mouthwatering than an iced nipple.
In NCTC's production, superbly directed by Ed Decker, Streisand's Daisy Gamble is rewritten as David Gamble, a gay man. The songs are all there, and the premise and plot of the show remain the same.
Posted
By A. K. Carroll
on Mon, May 23, 2016 at 9:30 AM
Mario Elias Photography
For the past six weeks, Margo Seibert (Rocky) and Zak Resnick (Mamma Mia!) have spent most of their waking moments independently pouring themselves into the same two-person show — The Last Five Years, directed by Michael Berresse and playing at A.C.T.’s Geary theater through June 5. You might think that such an arrangement would foster mutual affection (or mutual irritation) between the pair, but much like the characters they play on stage, Seibert and Resnick find they’re rarely in the same space.
In 1972 Bob Fosse's classic film Cabaretcelebrated the decadence of Weimar era Berlin while also noting the gathering storm which was looming just over the horizon. The Weimar Era was a wondrous time between the World Wars when Berlin was a mecca for avant-garde artists and performers — Berlin at that time was a place of unprecedented sexual freedom. It all ended in a heartbeat when Adolf Hitler was elected German Chancellor in 1933. Along with six million Jews, the era's anarchists and "sexual deviants" were hauled off to concentration camps, where most were murdered.
Thrillpeddlers' new musical The Untamed Stage, now playing at The Hypnodrome through May 28, also seeks to recreate that long lost time and place, albeit on a smaller scale. The results are often mesmerizing.
D'Arcy Drollinger As Chablis, Nancy French as Gewürztraminer and John Paul Gonzalez As Chardonnay
This is my happening and it freaks me out!
So goes the most famous line in the inexplicably weird 1970 quasi-parodic non-sequel to Valley of the Dolls, Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Spoken by rock impresario Z-Man Barzett at a party in his living room, it only hints at the weirdness to come. (Z-Man later reveals that he has been a woman all along, and beheads someone who spurned his/her advances.)
This is the provenance — or part of it, anyway — to D'Arcy Drollinger's drag rock musical Above and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, now playing at Oasis through May 14. Drollinger, whose previous original works include Shit and Champagne and its sequel, Champagne White and the Temple of Poon, gleefully hoovers up references from the campiest corners of pop culture while paying homage to the '90s post-punk art band Enrique (of which Drollinger was a member.) It's gonna get weirder.
Posted
By A. K. Carroll
on Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 8:00 AM
Matthew Murphy
Benjamin Scheuer with his cast of characters
In Benjamin’s Scheuer’s one-man musical show, The Lion (now playing at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater), he takes the lead alongside a cast of six guitars, some of which literally play the roles of the guitars of his past. He earnestly, playfully, and sometimes painfully plays each instrument, tying roughly a dozen songs together with strings of prose and personal narration that tell the story of the artist’s life and relationship with music, starting at age 10.
Scheuer plays something else as well — the audience. In one off-script moment during Tuesday night’s performance, he noted a commotion in the front row and added a candid aside: “Come on, I know you’re there. It’s not like I don’t know you’re there.”
Forgive the tired metaphor of comparing heartstrings and catgut, but Scheuer seems to know what he’s doing when he caters his life’s story for the audience's consumption. We become the final piece of the playbill, offering the gasps of surprise, spontaneous applause, and a perfectly timed laugh track that is anything but forced.
Posted
By A. K. Carroll
on Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 11:00 AM
Matthew Murphy
As the sole performer in the one-man musical The Lion, a 2015 Drama Desk Award-winner that will be running on the stage of A.C.T.’s Strand Theater April 19-May 1, songwriter and story teller Benjamin Scheuer appears to be a show unto himself. Scheuer, who hails from Greenwich Village and plays a variety of guitars over the course of the show, sees it a little differently.
“The guitars are my cast,” said Scheuer. “I play six guitars. I also understudy a guitar.” The understudy has only seen action in two of Scheuer’s performances, but is as vital an actor as any.
Posted
By A. K. Carroll
on Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 11:00 AM
Kevin Berne
CJ (Christopher Livingston), Big Joe (Ian Merrigan), and Coughlin (Jon Beavers) face the horrors of war
Sometimes, a show suits a setting so well that it takes on the characters and personality of hte place where it is performed. Such has been the case with The Unfortunates, the latest production to hit the stage of A.C.T.’s Strand Theater. Based on the mysterious blues classic, “The St. James Infirmary,” and originally developed as a Midnight Project at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the soulful darkly comic musical tracks POW Big Joe, who relies on music and community to find the courage to face his final moments before a firing squad. In the seconds before Joe’s execution, he is knocked unconscious and falls into an Alice-in-Wonderland dream world inhabited by a community of misfits who help him rise to greater strength through song.
Virginia Patterson Hensley (1932-1963) became internationally famous and beloved as Patsy Cline. Blessed with a rich and emotionally expressive voice, Cline continues to sell records today, more than fifty years after she died in a plane crash at age 30. In 1973, she was the first woman inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Her powerful vocal range transcended the country genre — Cline was ranked No. 46 in the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time issue of Rolling Stone.
Cline has also become something of a gay icon.
"For a gay favorite, Patsy has all the requisite elements," explained Clay David, Artistic Director of Altarena Playhouse in Alameda. "A tragic, early death, a portfolio of dark and poignant songs, and an allegedly miserable personal life." David noted that Cline is often listed as a gay icon next to Bette Midler, Cher, Madonna and Liza Minnelli.
"Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done she gave her father forty-one."
Lizzie Borden (1860-1927) was the prime suspect in the 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother. She was acquitted, and the killings were never resolved. Despite ostracism from her community, Borden remained in her hometown, Fall River, Mass., for the rest of her life. The case, a sensation at the time, retains its hold on the public's imagination to this very day.
So did Lizzie hack them or didn't she? Those questions might be answered in Lizzie, a new musical now playing at the Victoria Theatre through October 17.
Sub Pop recording artists 'clipping.' brought their brand of noise-driven experimental hip hop to the closing night of 2016's San Francisco Electronic Music Fest this past Sunday. The packed Brava Theater hosted an initially seated crowd that ended the night jumping and dancing against the front of the stage. The trio performed a set focused on their recently released Sci-Fi Horror concept album, 'Splendor & Misery', then delved into their dancier and more aggressive back catalogue, and recent single 'Wriggle'.
Opening performances included local experimental electronic duo 'Tujurikkuja' and computer music artist 'Madalyn Merkey.'"
