Arts & Events

Just Theater, always a company to watch, has opened, in partnership with Playground, Bay Area playwright Erin Bregman's Down a Little Dirt Road, about the daughter of a woman who's mysteriously disappeared making "a fantastical life" with her father "out of the shards" of their loss. Thursdays to Saturdays, 8 p. m., Sundays at 5, till July 3, Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant. $15-$30, sliding scale. justtheater.org; 306-1184. 

Anna Shneiderman of Ragged Wing Ensemble will lead a workshop this Saturday, 2-5, for the Fury Factory performance festival in San Francisco with six teenage members of the Ragged Wing Youth Ensemble: Teaching the Teacher--Ensemble Theater with Teens, showing how they create a piece from idea through writing and rehearsal to performance, featuring selections from their recent original show, In Between--and ending with an in-class show created by participants and the teen artists. At the old Traveling Jewish Theater performance space, 470 Florida St. (Project Artaud building), San Francisco. $35-$75. raggedwing.org, brownpapertickets.com 

Speaking of Just Theater, their Lab reading series presents Jonathan Spector's Sandal Weather, a staged reading, Monday, June 20 at 7 p. m. at the Berkeley City Club on Durant. Free. Reservations: Glenn@justtheater.org 

TheatreFirst's production of Julie Marie Myatt's Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter, directed by Dominique Lozano, about a female Iraq vet, coming home to California, missing a leg, ends this Sunday. Thursday-Saturday, 8 p. m., Sunday at 2. Marion Greene Theatre, 531-19th Street, Oakland, off Telegraph (a block from 19th Street BART), on ground floor of Fox Theatre building, Uptown Oakland. $10-$30. theatrefirst.org 

CalShake's staging of the Bard's titanic resume' of revenge tragedy, Titus Andronicus, directed by Joel Sass, with distinguished actor James Carpenter in the lead, continues its binge of treachery, coups de theatre, extravagant action and black humor, Tuesday through Sunday, various times, at the Bruns Amphitheater, Siesta Valley, Orinda. $20-$51. 548-9666; calshakes.org (On the website: excellent info, written and spoken by Philippa Kelly, CalShake's great dramaturge.) 

Aurora, in previews now of Mark Jackson's production of Kafka's Metamorphosis, opens today, Tuesdays (7 p. m.) & Wednesdays through Saturdays (8 p. m.) & Sundays at 2, through July 17. 2081 Addison near Shattuck, $34-$55 ($20 rush tickets at box office 1/2 hour before curtain).843-4822; auroratheatre.org (online sales temporaily down). 

And Gypsy opens at Contra Costa Civic Theater. Fridays-Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 2, June 17-July 17. 951 Pomona Avenue at Moeser Lane, El Cerrito. $15-$25. 524-9132; ccct.org