Arts & Events

THURSDAY, DEC. 10 -more-

The little angels in our Nutcracker are our 7- and 8-year-old students,” said Berkeley Ballet Theater Artistic Director Emerita Sally Streets. “It’s nice for young audience members to see someone their own age up on stage.” -more-

Leave it to the Shotgun Players to program The Threepenny Opera, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Weimar German cabaret musical, fitfully updated to ’70s punkishness, in place of a feel-good holiday show—though, amid high spirits, the attractively evil characters triumph over the more banal forces of order (or is it really due to the banality of order that they triumph?). -more-

‘THE BRONTE CYCLE’ CONTINUES -more-

Blanche Richardson recalled the “biggest ever” book signing of “the hundreds and hundreds of authors” who have come to Marcus Book Stores over the past 50 years: Muhammed Ali appeared at her family’s Oakland store five years ago. -more-

Rebecca’s Books, the warm, homey shop specializing in poetry, but with much more than poetry books inside, will be holding a benefit extravaganza from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. this Saturday at its Adeline Street store—just north of Alcatraz and a few steps from popular destinations like The Vault and Sweet Adeline’s. -more-

If The General (1927), Buster Keaton’s best-known work, shows the great comedian’s more classical side, with its steady narrative arc and character-driven gags subordinated to plot, Sherlock Jr. (1924) gives us the modernist Keaton, acutely award of cinema as a construct, of the role of fantasy in the movies, and of the curious nature of three-dimensional reality as represented in a two-dimensional medium.  -more-

A male writer wants his girlfriend’s opinion of a story he’s written. The writer is in the States; the woman in question is living in Cairo. The text could be obliquely about their relationship, or at least his attitude about relationships, with Arab women in particular. What are her thoughts? “Be frank, even brutal,” he says. The writer—and lover—is asking for it. -more-

Wings of Desire (1987) -more-

THURSDAY, DEC. 10 -more-