The Do List: 'Nosferatu,' Dogs in Costume, Guitar Virtuosos and More for Halloween

Looking for things to do in the Bay Area this weekend? The Do List has you covered with concerts, festivals, exhibitions, plays, performances and more.

You can listen to this week’s episode above with Gabe Meline, Sarah Hotchkiss, Sam Lefebvre, Rae Alexandra and Grace Cheung, or read about our picks below.

‘Get Out’ with Live Score: The San Francisco Symphony performs a live score alongside a screening of Get Out on the night before Halloween, and it’s basically the perfect way to get through a movie that is so damn stressful. When Rae saw Get Out in a movie theater, the crowd was literally screaming at the screen for half the film, so, if nothing else, it might be an interesting night for the musicians. That’s on Wednesday, Oct. 30, at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. Details here.

‘SOFT POWER’: The phrase “soft power” appeared in the Reagan era; it’s the idea that if you’re a country, instead of exerting power through threats or payments, you can attract and co-opt people through “soft” assets like culture, values and policies. SFMOMA co-opts this phrase for an impressive group show—the first from their new contemporary curatorial department—gathering artists who examine their roles as citizens and social actors. There’s a whole bunch of new commissions, an exciting change of pace in a museum often faulted for its static presentations of more canonical modernist art. SOFT POWER opens Saturday, Oct. 26, at SFMOMA in San Francisco. Details here.

Tompkins Square Anniversary: The San Francisco label Tompkins Square is known in part for acoustic guitar stylists of the past and present, many of them working in the generally fingerpicked, so-called American primitive guitar tradition of figures like John Fahey. On Friday, the label celebrates its 14th anniversary with a show featuring two guitarists, Kinloch Nelson and Kendra Amalie. Tompkins Square recently released a collection of Nelson’s late 1960s recordings, as well as a new volume of its Imaginational Anthem compilation featuring Amalie, a contemporary singer-songwriter. This is a fittingly small, intimate setting for the music. That’s on Friday, Oct. 25, at the Lost Church in San Francisco. Details here.

DogFest Bay Area: What do you get when you mix dogs and costumes? DogFest Bay Area, a Halloween-themed festival celebrating the adorable doggos around us. There’s plenty of treats for both humans and animals, and it raises money for Canine Companions for Independence. Family-friendly and with a costume contest, it’s a totally free event, and there’s also great places around Jack London to sit, eat and dog-watch if you want to make a whole day of it. That’s on Saturday, Oct. 26, at Jack London Square in Oakland. Details here.

‘Nosferatu’ With Live Organ: On Halloween night, Dorothy Papadakos sits at Grace Cathedral’s giant pipe organ to accompany two movies from the silent film era: Nosferatu (10pm) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (7pm). We’re talking two bonafide early horror movie classics—how can you not love Max Schreck as Nosferatu? But the setting here is the thing: there are 7,466 pipes in the Grace Cathedral organ, and combined with the cathedral’s famous high ceilings, causing a seven-second echo, it’s truly going to be a sight and sound to behold. That’s on Thursday, Oct. 31, at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Details here.