Arts & Events

BERKELEY HILLSIDE CLUB -more-

ALTARENA PLAYHOUSE -more-

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

BERKELEY CITY CLUB -more-

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"TEA TIME CONCERT AT ALAMO SQUARE," -- May 23. Karsten Windt Music Presentation performs works by Dvorak and Mozart in a private San Francisco home. Visit website for RSVP details. -more-

AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER -more-

A single mother, atoning for her sins in a convent; the justice of countryfolk over adultery…not the stuff of Baroque or Romantic opera, but very much of the verismo style, stories from real life. True to its company name, Verismo Opera will stage two of that style's shorter masterworks, Puccini's Suor Angelica and Cavelleria Rusticana, by Pietro Mascagni, this Saturday night at 7:30 at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar. -more-

Lots of folks don’t watch TV. It’s a waste of time. But if you are tempted by this addictive diversion, let me alert you that we are living in a Golden Age of Phil Farnsworth’s one-eyed monster. -more-

When Sean Chapin found himself addicted to drugs and homeless at the age of 25, he knew something had to change. -more-

Kent Nagano returns as conductor emeritus to lead the Berkeley Akademie Thursday night, May 20, at 8, in Mozart's Quintet in E flat for Piano and Winds, Jorg Widmann's Versuch uber die Fuge (Attempt at a Fugue) and Mozart's Concerto in A for Clarinet, at the First Congregational Church, Channing Way at Dana. -more-

The Berkeley Arts Festival will run through the month of May at 2121 Allston Way in downtown Berkeley. -more-

One last Kaua’i column and I’ll have gotten it out of my system.

Early on in our visit we spent a day in the Alaka’i Swamp, in the highlands of western Kaua’i. Not strictly a swamp in hydrological terms, it’s more of a bog where rainwater has collected above an impermeable layer of lava. It even has bog plants like the carnivorous sundew, the same species that grows in the Arctic tundra, probably transported to the island on the plumage of a migrating Pacific golden plover. There are patches of stunted ‘ohi’a trees, similar to the pygmy forests of the Mendocino coast. -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-

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ASHKENAZ -more-

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