thursday
june 12
I'm Your Puppet A dead-end carnival and a tired clown serve as perfect metaphors for the eternal, internal debate over quitting work in the Bindlestiff production Memento Mori. Puppeteer Chrystene R. Ells stars as Pasqual, a much-abused and continually disappointed clown who waltzes with a life-size Death the Jester and stumbles upon a mangy blue dog and an accordion-playing baby in her quest. Three puppeteers join Ells in this dark comedy, which features an original musical score. The show begins at 8 p.m. (and runs through July 5) at Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St., S.F. Admission is $5-10; call 974-1167. Meanwhile, Monkey Thump does percussive puppetry and the Red Eye Puppet Collective presents The Black Sheep (based on the Italo Calvino short story) at an evening of puppetry, live music, and family dinner at 7 p.m. Friday through Sunday at Cell Space, 2050 Bryant, S.F. Admission is $7-14; call 263-1598.
Great Shakes All's Well That Ends Well, which opens the California Shakespeare Festival's 1997 season, is known as a "problem play" because of its heroine's unflagging desire to marry a jerk. The story revolves around Helena (played here by Oregon Shakespeare veteran Michelle Morain), whose good deed wins her a bad husband and whose cleverness in the end undoes him and his lousy pal Parolles, as the Bard makes the case that rank doesn't equal class. The play is set in the mid-15th century, in a Gothic France and a colorful Florence. The amphitheater will be open two hours before the show for picnicking. All's Well previews at 8 p.m. (and runs through July 27) at Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, Orinda. Admission is $10-35; call (510) 548-9666 for directions and more information.
friday
june 13
Fleet of Feet While the rest of America is slavering away over Riverdance and Michael "I'm Lord of the Dance" Flatley, San Francisco is treated to an international dance experience on a truly grand scale, with 38 California-based companies performing numbers originating from around the world. The Ethnic Dance Festival, split into three thematic programs over as many weekends, begins with "Dance Odyssey," featuring sacred, social, and classical dances like the Chinese Tang Dynasty court dances, Polish polkas, and Mexican zapateados. Haitian troupe Petite la Croix and hip-hop company Housin' Authority help draw the lines between past and present in the second weekend's program, "Torchbearers and Innovators." The series concludes with "It's the Feet!," a rhythmic, percussive show featuring South African gumboot dance, Argentine gauchos (whose nail-studded boots make an agreeable racket), Appalachian cloggers, Indian temple dancers, and special guest tap star Al Robinson. The festival opens tonight at 8 p.m. with "Dance Odyssey" at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3330 Lyon, S.F. Admission is $15-23 per program; call 392-4400.
This One's for You "Bay Area Now" is all about locals and takes place locally, with locals in it. The summerlong exhibit and adjoining performing arts and film fest get off to a suitably styley beginning with a dance party and multimedia show in the Center for the Arts Forum, where musical guests including Freaky Chakra, Astral Matrix, Professor Smith, and Mood Clinic go gunning for club kids with a live sampling of the jungle and trip hop to come. The galleries will show off paintings by Ruby Neri, sculpture by D-L Alvarez, photography by J. John Priola, and work in various media by 34 other artists. The spotlight on up-and-coming artists is also trained on young writers, performers, and filmmakers like Jon Moritsugu, whose Mod Fuck Explosion screens Saturday at 8 p.m. The exhibit officially opens at 11 a.m. Saturday; the dance party begins at 8 p.m. tonight at Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, S.F. Admission is free-$10; call 978-ARTS for advance tickets.
Living Large Katie Guthorn was winsome as the doggedly cheerful Karen in A Karen Carpenter Christmas, the musical comedy that captured the true essence of the performing family. ("The Carpenters weren't reviled because they were bad musicians," according to Christmas director Tom Ross. "They were reviled because they were dorks.") Guthorn takes up a new acting challenge, one that doesn't involve diuretics, when she plays Mama Cass in Mama Cass' Summer of Love-In, another timely production by the Christmas creators. In this second comedy, with music by members of Big Bang Beat!, Cass is beset by crises shortly before the Monterey Pop Festival, but some groovy '60s tunes and a little help from her friends see her through. The show opens at 8 p.m. (and continues through June 21), followed by a dance party with Big Bang Beat! tonight and on the 20th at 10:30 p.m., at the Transmission Theater, 314 11th St., S.F. Admission is $15-20; call 861-6906.
My Oh Maya It's not just the literary voice with poet/author Maya Angelou: It's the literal voice, the well-modulated tones and rolling cadences that continue to transfix audiences, including all those people who got choked up just hearing Angelou read for the United Negro College Fund advertisement, or for Clinton's first inaugural. Angelou's experiences as a dancer, writer, activist, playwright, and educator spill over into works like her landmark novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the more recent Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now; she'll speak at 8 p.m. in the Masonic Auditorium, California & Taylor, S.F. Admission is $19 (benefits the Women's Foundation); call 392-4400.
saturday
june 14
Beach Ball Scarfing up forkfuls of cannelloni is just one of many attractive options at the North Beach Festival, America's oldest urban street fair, which earned that distinction with the twin spectacles of a pet blessing ceremony in the North Beach parish church and a gaggle of sunburned partiers flailing drunkenly in the park across the street. Live swing and blues bands, chalk drawing on the sidewalks, a spoken-word stage for would-be beats, and a vast array of refreshments contribute to the festive atmosphere in our Little Italy, although this year's new attraction, the California Olive Showcase, can't hurt. The festival begins at 10 a.m. (also Sunday) in Washington Square Park and on the 1200-1500 blocks of Grant and the 500 block of Green, S.F. Admission is free; call 403-0666.
Tribal Vibe Hundreds of jingle dancers and shawl dancers, traditional dancers and fancy dancers usher in the Silver Star Powwow and Indian Market, a performing and cultural arts venue for thousands of American and Canadian Indian tribes. The powwow, sponsored by the American Indian Film Institute, includes a grand entrance with a flag song and invocation, intertribal dancing, and a procession of tribal royalty and veterans groups. Basketry, beadwork, pottery, sculpture, and refreshments like stew and frybread will be sold at the marketplace. The event begins at 11 a.m. (also Sunday) at the Henry J. Kaiser Arena, 10th Street & Fallon, Oakland. Admission is $1-2.50; call 554-0525.
Oh, Gilbert! Like it or not, "He's hardly ever sick at sea!" is the line for which Sirs Gilbert and Sullivan will most often be remembered, and it may come in handy when a chorus of Irish, English, and Canadian operetta companies and fans sets sail (metaphorically speaking) for the fourth International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival. Notable events in this nearly two-week fest include performances by England's Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, S.F.'s Lamplighters Music Theater production of The Sorcerer, a Mikado with over 200 local schoolkids, classes, a film festival, and performance showdowns. It all begins with the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company's performance of The Mikado at 8 p.m. in Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft & Telegraph, Berkeley. Admission is $25-50; call (510) 642-9988 for a complete schedule of events.
sunday
june 15
Roll On Walkers, runners, and skaters are fine, and any type of bicyclist is great, but drivers are not invited to the Bicycle Treasure Hunt of San Francisco, a four-hour quest for bike-related loot, put on by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. People who don't arrive in teams will be matched up with groups of two to eight riders. Treasure maps and clue sheets will be doled out, and then comes the mad dash, which takes place within the confines of a "green and enchanting" place. (Hazard a guess, anyone?) The hunt's official start time is noon at Irving and 41st Avenue, S.F. Admission is $20-30 ($10-15 for kids under 14), and participants should bring their own food, water, and helmets; call 431-BIKE.
Grove-in on a Sunday Afternoon Nature and free stuff are two of the first things big-city dwellers tend to lose sight of in the urban jungle, but San Francisco is home to the country's oldest free summer performing-arts series, the Stern Grove Festival. This isn't scraggly small-town summer stock, either: The San Francisco Symphony and Ballet are slated to perform this season, along with Thelonious Monk Jr., the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and the sublimely ridiculous Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. The season opens today with the 60th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee, featuring Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeno Band, Russian folk 'n' roll band Limpopo, as well as kids activities, tours, and international foods, although audiences are welcome to bring their own refreshments. The party, which just happens to fall on Father's Day, begins at noon in Stern Grove, 19th Avenue & Sloat, S.F. Call 252-6252 for scheduling information.
monday
june 16
It's a Bloomin' Festival James Joyce's Ulysses, which launched a thousand dissertations and its own quarterly magazine, is celebrated internationally with Bloomsday, a re-creation of the epochal day in the life of protagonist Leopold Bloom. Bloomsday proper is celebrated locally with a free dramatic reading of the saloon chapter of Ulysses at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Dylan's Welsh Pub, 1901 Folsom, preceded by a variety of events earlier in the week. These include a dramatic reading from Finnegan's Wake at 8 p.m. Thursday at Kate O'Brien's, 579 Howard ($5); a dramatic reading from Ulysses in Nightown at 7 p.m. Saturday at New College Theater, 777 Valencia ($5); and an Irish breakfast at 11 a.m. Sunday at Dylan's ($15), followed by a mock funeral procession to an afternoon of readings, music, poetry, and song at 12:30 p.m. at Carroll's Bookshop, 1193 Church ($10). Call 641-1416 for more information. Vesuvio Cafe also holds a Bloomsday reading of Joyce and other Celtic writers, with traditional Irish music, at 7:30 p.m. tonight at 255 Columbus, S.F. Admission is free; call (510) 486-1698.
What Time Is It? The long-silent Ferry Building Clock Tower comes alive every 13 minutes for the next 24 hours with Mexican composer Guillermo Galindo's sound-art sculpture (T)our Time, which draws on elements from water, air, earth, and fire. The installation begins sounding off at 5 p.m. tonight at Market and Embarcadero. The free event marks the arrival of the annual arts festival Making Waves. Call 431-9962 for more information.
tuesday
june 17
Creatures of the Night Bianca, Mick, Liz, Liza, Halston, and Dali exude star power galore in "The Last Party: Nightworld in Photographs," but the photographers who shot them -- Diane Arbus, Helmut Newton, Nan Goldin, Richard Avedon, and Andy Warhol, among them -- are Manhattan A-listers in their own right. The paparazzi, including tabloid demigod Weegee, are also represented in this glamour-drenched survey of nocturnal revelry, with photos dating as far back as the '30s. The show, inspired by author Anthony Haden-Guest's book The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night, can give viewers a taste of the casual sex and drug use of an era long gone. The exhibit opens at 10 a.m. at the Serge Sorokko Gallery, 231 Grant, S.F. Admission is free; call 421-7770.
