Arts & Events

BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE -more-

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CALVARY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH -more-

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, EAST BAY (HAYWARD CAMPUS) -- -more-

A GREAT GOOD PLACE FOR BOOKS -more-

AURORA THEATRE COMPANY -more-

AMES GALLERY -more-

BERKELEY PUBLIC LIBRARY, CENTRAL BRANCH -more-

ELKS LODGE, ALAMEDA -more-

AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER -more-

“Jerusalem: the East Side Story” -more-

"South of the Border, down Mexico Way" might well be the theme song of one of Berkeley's favorite restaurants, "La Fiesta." Entering through the handsome gates of this marvelous Mexican restaurant, one indeed feels transported to old Mexico. With its Spanish revival furniture and Diego Rivera reproductions lining the walls, dining at La Fiesta is a joy, -more-

Hundreds of Berkeleyans and visitors to town turned out in picture-perfect spring weather on Sunday, May 2, 2010 to attend two tours. -more-

OUTDOORS-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 16 -more-

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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-

A GREAT GOOD PLACE FOR BOOKS -more-

CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY -more-

ASIAN ART MUSEUM OF SAN FRANCISCO The Asian Art Museum-Chon-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture recently unveiled its new building in San Francisco's Civic Center. The building, the former San Francisco Public Library, has been completely retrofitted and rebuilt to house San Francisco's significant collection of Asian treasures. The museum offers complimentary audio tours of the museum's collection galleries. -more-

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-

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-

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

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-

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-

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-

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

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

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-

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

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

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-