Arts Listings

Follies is one of Sondheim’s greatest works,” said Michael Morgan, Oakland East Bay Symphony director and conductor, of the concert version of the Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman Tony-winning musical the symphony will stage at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre May 16 and 18, with Academy Award-Tony-Grammy winner Rita Moreno, Val Diamond (Beach Blanket Babylon) and cabaret diva Sharon McKnight as guest stars. “[It’s] the timeless story of aging, learning from past mistakes and passing wisdom down from generation to generation.” 

Picking up on the theme of the wisdom passed from generation to generation, the symphony is presenting a free forum with live music, dance and song this Saturday, 1:30-4:30 p.m., at the Veterans Memorial Building, 200 Grand Ave. in Oakland. 

With Morgan, assistant conductor Brian Nies and co-choreographer Ronn Guidi of Oakland Ballet as participants, the forum will feature Ted Chapin, director of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization and author of Everything was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies, as keynote speaker. 

A multigenerational panel, moderated by John Kendall Bailey, director of Trinity Lyric Opera and Voices of Music Sacra (and preconcert speaker for the symphony), will include Berkeley’s Barbara Oliver, founder of the Aurora Theatre; Golden Follies choreographer-dancer (and co-choreographer of Follies with Guidi) Diane Tembey-Stawicki; dancer Marie Mazza; Guidi; Oakland poet and mystery writer Lucha Corpi; Berkeley High drama student Nkili Birmingham; College of Alameda Music Department chair and jazz player Glen Pearson and career counselor Bonnie Bell of Bell Investments in Oakland. 

The live show will be presented by StageBridge, a nonprofit internationally touring troupe of over-50 actors committed to intergenerational work, in selections (with child performers joining in) from their world premiere musical, Chicken Sunday (Jim Jenkins, piano), from Patricia Polacco’s book, as well as Sondheim songs sung by Darla Wigginton (with Brian Nies on piano) and Diane Tembey-Stawicki performing “Tap Dancing Through the Years.” 

The Forum is presented by the Symphony in association with StageBridge and the Downtown Oakland Senior Center. 

The concert version at the Paramount will feature, in addition to Moreno, Diamond and McKnight, tenor Trent Morant (former director of the Oakland Youth Chorus), soprano Sheri Greenawald (director of the San Francisco Opera Center) and soprano Melody Moore, as well as members of Berkeley Broadway Singers and members of Golden Follies, seniors who perform musical revues. 

FOLLIES 

May 16 and 18 at the Paramount Theater,  

2025 Broadway, Oakland. 

465-6400. www.oebs.org. 

Free forum with music, dance and song 

1:30-4:30 p.m. Saturday, May 3. Veterans Memorial Building, 200 Grand Ave., Oakland.