Arts & Events

GENERAL-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Friday April 30, 2010 - 11:22:00 AM

A GREAT GOOD PLACE FOR BOOKS -- Kathi Goldmark and Sam Barry, May 8, 7 p.m. The authors talk about "Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now.'' -more-


STAGE-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Friday April 30, 2010 - 11:19:00 AM

AURORA THEATRE COMPANY -- CLOSING -- "John Gabriel Borkman," by David Eldridge, through May 9, Tuesday, 7 p.m.; Wednesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. After serving eight years in prison for embezzlement, Borkman plans a comeback. $15-$55. -more-


CLASSICAL MUSIC-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Friday April 30, 2010 - 11:01:00 AM

BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE -- -more-


SEAGULL SOARS AT SHOTGUN –See it by Sunday!

by John A. McMullen II
Thursday April 29, 2010 - 10:54:00 PM
Trish Mulholland.

A century ago, theatre changed. The first “modern” play was The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. The usual theater fare then was melodrama which was considered to be high art. The Seagull was people just talking, expressing their innermost longings, mired in incontrovertible conflicts of the heart, and locked in a “union of opposites.” When it opened in St. Petersburg, the audience response was hostile. The actress playing Nina was so frightened that she lost her voice mid-performance, and Chekhov hid backstage after the first act. But fellow playwright and producer Nemirovich-Danchenko saw the play’s potential and three years later in 1898 convinced C. Stanislavski to direct it for their Moscow Art Theatre. The rest is history. The MAT brought its work to NYC in the ‘20’s, the crowd gasped when actors just behaved and engaged in such startling and ground-breaking staging as turning their back on the audience while conversing. It overwhelmed the audience with a naturalism that set a new tone and mode which would be the forefather of film acting. The crest of the Moscow Art Theatre still bears a seagull. -more-


Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt

Reviewed by Dorothy Bryant
Thursday April 29, 2010 - 02:27:00 PM

Tony Judt is a distinguished scholar, historian, writer, and academic, born in England and based mostly in America. Of his thirteen earlier books, I have read only one. Presently, I am working my way through his 2005 masterpiece Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945. I am more familiar with his highly informed and probing reviews and essays in the New York Review of Books. One of those NYReview essays (December 17, 2009) grew into this book. -more-


WILD NEIGHBORS: The Koa’e ‘Ula Hula

By Joe Eaton
Thursday April 29, 2010 - 02:40:00 PM
Pair of  wedge-tailed  shearwaters at nest  site.

Kaua’i is an extraordinary place to see seabirds. Kilauea National Wildlife Refuge on the North Shore hosts nesting Laysan albatrosses, red-footed boobies, and wedge-tailed shearwaters. The boobies occupy a wooded slope above the ocean; we watched them bringing in twigs as nesting material. The albatrosses, mostly unpaired adolescents and supersized chicks, use a nearby hill. Almost literally underfoot, the shearwaters had excavated burrows right at the edge of a paved path. Great frigatebirds, long-winged piratical creatures, nest elsewhere but come to Kilauea to steal fish from the hapless boobies. -more-


Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour this Sunday

By Steven Finacom
Thursday April 29, 2010 - 02:47:00 PM

Spring showers will give way to local, native, wildflowers this weekend as a number of local homeowners invite the public into their gardens. -more-


TOURS AND ACTIVITIES-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 31

Friday April 30, 2010 - 11:28:00 AM

BAY AREA RAIL TRAILS -- A network of trails converted from unused railway corridors and developed by the Rails to Trails Conservancy. -more-


The Berkeley Arts Festival Opens with Sarah Cahill and the Dazzling Divas

By Bonnie Hughes
Thursday April 29, 2010 - 08:22:00 PM
Left to right: Kathleen Moss, Eliza O'Malley, Pamela Connelly

Highly acclaimed pianist Sarah Cahill will inaugurate the Berkeley Arts Festival at 8 pm on Saturday, May 1, performing a program of exciting piano music, including of Annie Gosfield's Five Characters Walk Into a Bar (2010), Eve Beglarian's Night Psalm (2009), Terry Riley's Fandango on the Heaven Ladder (1994), Balinese Ceremonial Music arranged by Colin McPhee/Evan Ziporyn (2007), Tania Leon's Mistica (2003), selections from Larry Polansky's B'midbar (2009), Guy Klucevsek's Don't Let the Boogie Man Get You (2005), and selections from Mamoru Fujieda's Begonia in My Life (2009). -more-


Wine and Chocolate at Community Garden on Saturday

By Steven Finacom
Thursday April 29, 2010 - 07:56:00 PM

Any old messiah can turn water into wine. But wine into water? That takes a community effort. -more-


Adobe building event Sunday, May 2

By Steven Finacom
Thursday April 29, 2010 - 07:37:00 PM

If you want to get dirt under your fingernails in a productive cause, there’s an opportunity this weekend. -more-


Theater Around and About

By Ken Bullock
Thursday April 29, 2010 - 03:00:00 PM

With previews starting Friday, April 30 at 8, at the Berkeley City Club: TERRORISTKA, a new play by Rebecca Bella, directed by Jessica Holt for Threshold Theatre (which began in a Berkeley directors workshop), based on a true story Bella heard while a Fulbright Fellow in Russia, of a young Chechen woman, recruited to be a suicide bomber, journeying to Moscow, told in verse and song. With sound design by Greg Scharpen and costumes by Tammy Berlin, both of Central Works. Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p. m.; Sundays at 5 2315 Durant Ave. $12-$29. (415) 891-7235; thethresholdproject.blogspot.com -more-


GENERAL-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 12:10:00 PM

A GREAT GOOD PLACE FOR BOOKS -- Kathi Goldmark and Sam Barry, May 8, 7 p.m. The authors talk about "Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now.'' -more-


STAGE-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 12:06:00 PM

AURORA THEATRE COMPANY -- CLOSING -- "John Gabriel Borkman," by David Eldridge, through May 9, Tuesday, 7 p.m.; Wednesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. After serving eight years in prison for embezzlement, Borkman plans a comeback. $15-$55. -more-


CLASSICAL MUSIC-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 12:04:00 PM

BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE -- -more-


POPMUSIC-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 12:05:00 PM

924 GILMAN ST. -- All ages welcome. -more-


EXHIBITS-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 12:02:00 PM

BERKELEY PUBLIC LIBRARY, CENTRAL BRANCH -- -more-


GALLERIES-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 12:01:00 PM

BAY AREA HEART GALLERY -- Exhibit consists of photographs of children, youth and families, accompanied by their compelling stories. The joint exhibit opens in the Alameda County Administration Building, 1221 Oak Street, Oakland and at the Eden Area Multi-Service Center, 24100 Amador Way, Hayward. -more-


CLASSICAL MUSIC-SAN FRANCISCO THROUGH MAY 9

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 12:03:00 PM

CALVARY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH -- -more-


Berkeley Arts Festival Starts This Weekend with Sarah Cahill and the Dazzling Divas

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 01:38:00 PM

The Berkeley Arts Festival will soon be in full swing, starting this weekend on Saturday with pianist Sarah Cahill at 8pm and continuing on Sunday at 8 pm with the Dazzling Divas ,Pamela Connelly, Kathleen Moss and Eliza O'Malley and pianist Hadley McCarroll,presenting favorites from the opera repertoire. -more-


Oakland Museum re-opening this weekend

By Steven Finacom
Monday April 26, 2010 - 09:16:00 PM

The Oakland Museum of California reopens the weekend of May 1-2, 2010 with a continuous 31-hour long stream of events. The main building has been closed for two years for extensive renovations and creation of what the museum calls a “re-imagined” exhibit program. -more-


BAHA House Tour Focuses on Julia Morgan

By Daniella Thompson
Monday April 26, 2010 - 09:10:00 PM

Nine houses designed by Julia Morgan in the Claremont and Elmwood districts will be open on the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association’s Spring House Tour, to take place Sunday, May 2, between 1 pm and 5 pm. -more-


Exhibition: “Women Hold Up Half The Sky: Bay Area Women's Posters of the 1970s and 1980s”

How do we remember a social protest movement? Often by words that have been left behind: founding documents, manifestos, flyers, and the like. But visual artifacts can be powerful too: sometimes a movement’s images reveal its deepest character and commitments. -more-


East Bay Then and Now:The Goddards and Julia Morgan

by Daniella Thompson
Wednesday April 28, 2010 - 06:16:00 PM
2615, 2617, 2619 Parker St., designed by Julia Morgan for Louise Goddard in 1905.

Around the turn of the last century, it was common practice for middle-class or well-to-do families with adolescent children to move their residence to Berkeley in order to secure good education for their young. Among those was the household of Clark and Louise Goddard. -more-


MUSEUMS-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 11:58:00 AM

AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM AND LIBRARY AT OAKLAND -- The Oakland Public Library's museum is designed to discover, preserve, interpret and share the cultural and historical experiences of African Americans in California and the West. In addition, a three-panel mural is on permanent display. -more-


OUTDOORS-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 11:57:00 AM

ARDENWOOD HISTORIC FARM -- Ardenwood farm is a working farm that dates back to the time of the Patterson Ranch, a 19th-century estate with a mansion and Victorian Gardens. Today, the farm still practices farming techniques from the 1870s. Unless otherwise noted, programs are free with regular admission. -more-


TOURS AND ACTIVITIES-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 31

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 11:55:00 AM

ARDENWOOD HISTORIC FARM -- Ardenwood farm is a working farm that dates back to the time of the Patterson Ranch, a 19th-century estate with a mansion and Victorian Gardens. Today, the farm still practices farming techniques from the 1870s. Unless otherwise noted, programs are free with regular admission. -more-


KIDS-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 9

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 12:00:00 PM

A GREAT GOOD PLACE FOR BOOKS -- -more-


TOURS AND ACTIVITIES-SAN FRANCISCO THROUGH MAY 31

Tuesday April 27, 2010 - 11:51:00 AM

ALCATRAZ ISLAND TOURS -- On the Island, The National Park Service offers a captioned orientation video with historical footage, self-guided walks, exhibits, and Ranger interpretive talks. Also available is an award-winning audio tour in the prison Cell House with actual interviews of former guards and inmates, available in six languages. There is a steep uphill walk to the Cell House. -more-