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"content": "\u003cp>It was with great fanfare that \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b>, a decidedly low-budget (by modern Broadway standards at least) parody of \u003cb>Sesame Street\u003c/b>, knocked out the high-profile \u003cb>Wicked\u003c/b> for the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2004. Even more theatrical eyebrows were raised when, shortly thereafter, the show’s producers announced that in lieu of a national tour, the show would instead be heading to Steve Wynn’s swanky new hotel in Las Vegas for a sit-down production in a custom-built theater space. It was a risky move that didn’t pay off. Despite massive publicity campaigns and a futile attempt to “Vegas-ize” the show (it was cut to 90 minutes, no intermission), the production closed after only a nine month run. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thankfully, the not-so-surprising curtain on \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b>‘s Las Vegas fiasco paved the way for a highly anticipated tour, which opened here in San Francisco last week. Ultimately, \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b> may be many things — relentlessly charming, wickedly funny (pun intended), irresistibly hummable — but a Vegas spectacle is one thing it most definitely is not. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show revolves around recent college grad Princeton, a sad sack of a puppet-man, whose student debt and useless degree in English lead him to Avenue Q in search of affordable housing in New York City. Here, among the grimy stoops and beat-up trash cans, he meets a colorful menagerie of neighbors, who are obviously inspired by the characters of \u003cb>Sesame Street\u003c/b>. But apparently one big thing’s changed since Mr. Hooper and Maria hung out with Grover and Big Bird … these muppets are getting laid! Or (like those of us raised on the highly lauded PBS series), at least, they’re \u003ci>trying\u003c/i> to get laid, when they’re not worrying about unemployment, depression and fear of commitment. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the dark themes upon which \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b> occasionally treads, the show bounces along at a doggedly frenetic and consistently hilarious pace, thanks to the boundless energy of a fabulously talented cast. Cole Porter (no, not \u003ci>that\u003c/i> Cole Porter) as the very un-funny comedian Brian, and Angela Ai as Christmas Eve, an amalgamation of cynical Asian stereotypes, are the human counterpart to their puppet friends, offering sage advice to their furry friends in much the way Bob and Linda did back on \u003cb>Sesame Street\u003c/b>. Ai’s “The More You Ruv Someone,” with its faux musical theater drama and mauled English grammar, proves to be a sweetly sentimental tribute to love in all its frustrating wonder. Carla Renata — a dead ringer for comedian Wanda Sykes — tears it up as the embittered landlord, Gary Coleman. Yes, \u003ci>that\u003c/i> Gary Coleman, former child star who, at the conclusion of “It Sucks to Be Me,” can rightfully claim to be the person whose life sucks the most. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert McClure and Christian Anderson double- or triple-up on puppet roles, so at times they’ll provide the arms for one puppet and the voice for another “person of fur,” on the other side of the stage. It sounds confusing, but it works. Anderson’s adorably clueless Nicky and McClure’s high-strung, closeted Rod (clearly modeled on \u003cb>Sesame Street\u003c/b>‘s Bert and Ernie) just might go down as musical theater’s hottest new gay couple … . That is, if they were gay. But the real show-stopper of \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b> is Kelli Sawyer, in a dazzling turn as Lucy the Slut, an over-the-top Miss Piggy-esque chanteuse. That Sawyer has lungs that can reach the rafters of the cavernous Orpheum Theater and bring an audience to its feet is amazing; that she can do it all while manipulating a pink foam puppet in a frizzy blond wig is nothing short of extraordinary. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The creative team behind \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b> (Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty) hit a home run with this little musical that could, and San Francisco is lucky to have landed a month-long run. \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b> runs through September 2, 2007.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It was with great fanfare that \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b>, a decidedly low-budget (by modern Broadway standards at least) parody of \u003cb>Sesame Street\u003c/b>, knocked out the high-profile \u003cb>Wicked\u003c/b> for the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2004. Even more theatrical eyebrows were raised when, shortly thereafter, the show’s producers announced that in lieu of a national tour, the show would instead be heading to Steve Wynn’s swanky new hotel in Las Vegas for a sit-down production in a custom-built theater space. It was a risky move that didn’t pay off. Despite massive publicity campaigns and a futile attempt to “Vegas-ize” the show (it was cut to 90 minutes, no intermission), the production closed after only a nine month run. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thankfully, the not-so-surprising curtain on \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b>‘s Las Vegas fiasco paved the way for a highly anticipated tour, which opened here in San Francisco last week. Ultimately, \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b> may be many things — relentlessly charming, wickedly funny (pun intended), irresistibly hummable — but a Vegas spectacle is one thing it most definitely is not. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show revolves around recent college grad Princeton, a sad sack of a puppet-man, whose student debt and useless degree in English lead him to Avenue Q in search of affordable housing in New York City. Here, among the grimy stoops and beat-up trash cans, he meets a colorful menagerie of neighbors, who are obviously inspired by the characters of \u003cb>Sesame Street\u003c/b>. But apparently one big thing’s changed since Mr. Hooper and Maria hung out with Grover and Big Bird … these muppets are getting laid! Or (like those of us raised on the highly lauded PBS series), at least, they’re \u003ci>trying\u003c/i> to get laid, when they’re not worrying about unemployment, depression and fear of commitment. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the dark themes upon which \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b> occasionally treads, the show bounces along at a doggedly frenetic and consistently hilarious pace, thanks to the boundless energy of a fabulously talented cast. Cole Porter (no, not \u003ci>that\u003c/i> Cole Porter) as the very un-funny comedian Brian, and Angela Ai as Christmas Eve, an amalgamation of cynical Asian stereotypes, are the human counterpart to their puppet friends, offering sage advice to their furry friends in much the way Bob and Linda did back on \u003cb>Sesame Street\u003c/b>. Ai’s “The More You Ruv Someone,” with its faux musical theater drama and mauled English grammar, proves to be a sweetly sentimental tribute to love in all its frustrating wonder. Carla Renata — a dead ringer for comedian Wanda Sykes — tears it up as the embittered landlord, Gary Coleman. Yes, \u003ci>that\u003c/i> Gary Coleman, former child star who, at the conclusion of “It Sucks to Be Me,” can rightfully claim to be the person whose life sucks the most. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert McClure and Christian Anderson double- or triple-up on puppet roles, so at times they’ll provide the arms for one puppet and the voice for another “person of fur,” on the other side of the stage. It sounds confusing, but it works. Anderson’s adorably clueless Nicky and McClure’s high-strung, closeted Rod (clearly modeled on \u003cb>Sesame Street\u003c/b>‘s Bert and Ernie) just might go down as musical theater’s hottest new gay couple … . That is, if they were gay. But the real show-stopper of \u003cb>Avenue Q\u003c/b> is Kelli Sawyer, in a dazzling turn as Lucy the Slut, an over-the-top Miss Piggy-esque chanteuse. That Sawyer has lungs that can reach the rafters of the cavernous Orpheum Theater and bring an audience to its feet is amazing; that she can do it all while manipulating a pink foam puppet in a frizzy blond wig is nothing short of extraordinary. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>As soon as the lights go down and the shadows come out, it’s clear that Word For Word’s adaptation of “Angel Face” intends to be loyal to the dark, pulpy genre its author helped to create.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, as it does for all its productions, Word For Word’s performance speaks every word from the original short story, including all the “he said” “she said” quotation attribution, scene-setting, and exposition. It’s all there, delivered to the audience, for the most part, as puckish asides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A good thing, too. Woolrich, whose own life seemed to follow the uncanny conventions of the fiction he wrote, often lends his characters amazing abilities of description. Even his most meat-headed characters are capable of capturing a scene or a thought in powerful, evocative thuds of phrasing. All of which is preserved and enhanced in the stage adaptation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Angel Face,” a short story Woolrich penned under the pseudonym William Irish, was discovered by dramaturg Randall Homan while looking for noir stories featuring female detectives. And although the protagonist here isn’t a detective, she is as strong and sympathetic a female character as you’re likely to find in any story of the time. “Angel Face” is the story of Jerry Wheeler, aka Honey Sebastian, aka Angel Face — a brassy New York broad whose brother is framed for murdering his curiously wealthy, socialite sweetheart. Caught seemingly red-handed, lingering above his girlfriend only a few minutes after she was last seen alive, Chick, the brother (played by Danny Wolohan), is “railroaded,” sent upstate in short order to face the electric chair. Jerry (Laura Lowry) has only a few weeks to prove his innocence. Luckily, she’s peaked the interest of Detective Nick Burns (John Flanagan), one of the “dicks” who helped put Chick away. With only a hunch as to who the real killer might be, Angel Face takes a job as a dancer in a seedy nightclub, and begins to peel away the layers of a conspiracy to frame her brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plot is filled with all the strange twists and inexplicable turns that give the genre its narcotic, dreamlike feel, which is heightened by the stage setting and lighting, which draw out the shadows and darken the demeanors of the actors. A series of three screens in the background brilliantly capture the atmosphere for each scene, freezing characters in profile at pivotal moments. Thatched into ornamental design to evoke the gaudy decoration of a downtown nightclub or a back alley, they also catch the silhouettes of significant objects, such as the branding iron that nightclub king Militis uses to mark his wayward love interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>True to the noir form, there’s plenty of cruelty in Woolrich’s story, made palatable by the wry, inventive description and period slang. Thugs have faces “like cobblestones.” They go down “into hamburger, under a battery of heavy fists.” Shot by bullets, victims “take a nosedive.” In one of many such moments, Jerry reminds us of her brother’s imminent death by electric chair, saying, “Chick eats chicken and ice cream for dinner tomorrow night.” The language is hard-bitten to the point of campy, and the rough-hewn New Yoik accents push it further in that direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Add to that Word for Word’s verbatim adaptation; characters speak not only dialog, but also their stage direction, and all the other odds and ends of the written story, all of which creates a kind of playful bond between the audience and actors, and between the actors themselves:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angel Face: “The”\u003cbr>Militis: “night”\u003cbr>Angel Face: “ticked”\u003cbr> Militis: “on…”\u003cbr>Angel Face: “He’d look at me, then he’d suddenly”\u003cbr>Militis: “throw up his hands as though to ward off a dazzling glare. ‘Turn it off, it hurts my eyes.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My Fedora goes off to director Stephanie Hunt and Word for Word for the inventive recreation of the text. At its best, the narration lends Woolrich’s lines and characters more nuance, and adds depth to the actions on stage. The original short story is written primarily from Jerry’s point of view, but in Word for Word’s production the entire cast slips in here and there, sometimes picking up the narration in mid-sentence, sometimes hijacking the text mid-word to add their own inflection, their own perspective. The result is a kind of colorful pastiche of voices and characters, acting out a verbal tug-of-war over the script and the audience’s attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At times, though, the description is a little extraneous, especially when the characters find themselves narrating their own movements up a stairwell or down a street, occasionally losing their breath as they do so. However even the stumbling over a line or a breathless delivery enhances the action and quickens the story’s pace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laura Lowry renders Jerry (Angel Face) at once tough and endearingly vulnerable. And John Flanagan, Danny Wolohan, and Michael Patrick Gaffney add shade and character to the detectives and crooks they play, all of whom are almost interchangeable in Woolrich’s original short story. Paul Finocchiaro plays an amazing Militis, the arch-villain Greek nightclub king, managing to cast him as a pathetic, lonely old man — as sympathetic a character as a serial-murdering letch can be. Morgan Voeliger and Casey Jones Bastiaans both play multiple roles throughout the show, but shine best together in their performance-within-a-performance of the calypso song “Shame and Scandal,” an opening act at the nightclub where Angel Face dances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those purists who like their noir dark and sinister, there might be a little too much tongue-in-cheek meta-humor in “Angel Face,” but there’s no doubt that Word for Word has teased out new possibilities for the noir stage, and added a whole new texture to a lost classic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angel Face runs through September 2, 2007 at Project Artaud Theater. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.zspace.org/angelface.htm\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit zspace.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>True to the noir form, there’s plenty of cruelty in Woolrich’s story, made palatable by the wry, inventive description and period slang. Thugs have faces “like cobblestones.” They go down “into hamburger, under a battery of heavy fists.” Shot by bullets, victims “take a nosedive.” In one of many such moments, Jerry reminds us of her brother’s imminent death by electric chair, saying, “Chick eats chicken and ice cream for dinner tomorrow night.” The language is hard-bitten to the point of campy, and the rough-hewn New Yoik accents push it further in that direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Add to that Word for Word’s verbatim adaptation; characters speak not only dialog, but also their stage direction, and all the other odds and ends of the written story, all of which creates a kind of playful bond between the audience and actors, and between the actors themselves:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angel Face: “The”\u003cbr>Militis: “night”\u003cbr>Angel Face: “ticked”\u003cbr> Militis: “on…”\u003cbr>Angel Face: “He’d look at me, then he’d suddenly”\u003cbr>Militis: “throw up his hands as though to ward off a dazzling glare. ‘Turn it off, it hurts my eyes.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My Fedora goes off to director Stephanie Hunt and Word for Word for the inventive recreation of the text. At its best, the narration lends Woolrich’s lines and characters more nuance, and adds depth to the actions on stage. The original short story is written primarily from Jerry’s point of view, but in Word for Word’s production the entire cast slips in here and there, sometimes picking up the narration in mid-sentence, sometimes hijacking the text mid-word to add their own inflection, their own perspective. The result is a kind of colorful pastiche of voices and characters, acting out a verbal tug-of-war over the script and the audience’s attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At times, though, the description is a little extraneous, especially when the characters find themselves narrating their own movements up a stairwell or down a street, occasionally losing their breath as they do so. However even the stumbling over a line or a breathless delivery enhances the action and quickens the story’s pace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laura Lowry renders Jerry (Angel Face) at once tough and endearingly vulnerable. And John Flanagan, Danny Wolohan, and Michael Patrick Gaffney add shade and character to the detectives and crooks they play, all of whom are almost interchangeable in Woolrich’s original short story. Paul Finocchiaro plays an amazing Militis, the arch-villain Greek nightclub king, managing to cast him as a pathetic, lonely old man — as sympathetic a character as a serial-murdering letch can be. Morgan Voeliger and Casey Jones Bastiaans both play multiple roles throughout the show, but shine best together in their performance-within-a-performance of the calypso song “Shame and Scandal,” an opening act at the nightclub where Angel Face dances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those purists who like their noir dark and sinister, there might be a little too much tongue-in-cheek meta-humor in “Angel Face,” but there’s no doubt that Word for Word has teased out new possibilities for the noir stage, and added a whole new texture to a lost classic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angel Face runs through September 2, 2007 at Project Artaud Theater. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.zspace.org/angelface.htm\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit zspace.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>After seeing a staged reading of \u003cb>Mr. Fujiyama’s Electric Beach\u003c/b> on Saturday, I still have no idea who Mr. Fujiyama is, or how he created his electric beach. In fact, there was absolutely no mention of Mr. Fujiyama, a beach, or even electricity for that matter. But I can’t wait to find out the answers — or if there will be any answers — when the play premieres next February, with a full production by \u003ca href=\"http://www.cuttingball.org\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Cutting Ball Theater\u003c/a>. The work-in-progress reading that is part of the 30th annual \u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=3\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Playwrights Festival\u003c/a> was enough to get me fired up about the possibilities of Kevin Oakes’ latest work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play opens with an extended monologue by the anonymous main character that instantly establishes the disoriented future noir setting for the play. The main character, ably played by Jason Wong, is soon set on his quest to discover his past while navigating the mysterious agency he works for, its ties to a questionable scientific institute, and meeting the assorted types any good noir detective should meet on his quest. Wong, who was a revelation as the anguished and painfully vulnerable lead in Crowded Fire’s production of \u003cb>Porcelain\u003c/b> last year, envelops his character in the cool mystery of a hardboiled protagonist from a \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Haruki Murakami\u003c/a> story. Meanwhile, the backdrop of sentient animals living alongside humans can’t help but evoke Jonathan Lethem’s jittery \u003cb>Gun with Occasional Music\u003c/b>. In fact, the play feels descended from a number of noble antecedents including Franz Kafka and Philip K. Dick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The only reference that receives a name in the work is Orson Welles, who plays a very special role here, one which I am eager to see realized in the full production. And despite the fact that the plot fits into the mold of \u003cb>Bladerunner\u003c/b>-like future noir, the play remains highly original and looks like it will make full use of the live production format when fully staged. The reading featured only the first half of the play, and the audience let out an audible sigh after the lights came up, releasing the tension that had built up throughout. The cast, who realized their characters remarkably well for an on-book reading, then came out to sit through the talkback with the audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Playwrights Foundation is presenting its 30th anniversary Bay Area Playwright’s Festival, a collection of readings of new works by some of the most promising and innovative playwrights in the country. Readings of works in progress allow the playwright to gauge the audience experience and interpretation, polish language and stage cues, and visualize what so far has been primarily an ink and paper production. Readings also give production companies a chance to see what’s out there in the way of new material that they may want to take on the following year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Out of the readings this year, \u003cb>Mr. Fujiyama’s Electric Beach\u003c/b> is a special case — it is part of the Playwright Foundation’s Producing Partnerships Initiative, which helps incubate a new work from start to finish, in this case working with the Cutting Ball Theater production company which co-commissioned the work. Kevin Oakes has eschewed the more isolationist model of writing to forge a close relationship with director Rob Melrose, dramaturge Amy Mueller and the cast and artistic team in developing \u003cb>Mr. Fujiyama’s Electric Beach\u003c/b>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amy Mueller is not only dramaturge for this production, but is also directing another work in the festival and Artistic Director for the Playwrights Foundation. In the latter capacity, she has spent the last seven years steering the Foundation to ramp up the opportunities and resources made available in the Bay Area for emerging playwrights. Over the past 30 years, alumni of the festival have won worldwide acclaim and every prestigious award in theater. This year’s festival features ten works, six full-length and four shorts selected from a nationwide selection process of over 400 works. Each of the plays presented this weekend will be available to sample next weekend as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a full program, visit the \u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=48\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Playwrights Foundation\u003c/a>. And look for the world premiere of \u003cb>Mr. Fujiyama’s Electric Beach\u003c/b> in February 2008 with Cutting Ball Theater.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After seeing a staged reading of \u003cb>Mr. Fujiyama’s Electric Beach\u003c/b> on Saturday, I still have no idea who Mr. Fujiyama is, or how he created his electric beach. In fact, there was absolutely no mention of Mr. Fujiyama, a beach, or even electricity for that matter. But I can’t wait to find out the answers — or if there will be any answers — when the play premieres next February, with a full production by \u003ca href=\"http://www.cuttingball.org\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Cutting Ball Theater\u003c/a>. The work-in-progress reading that is part of the 30th annual \u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=3\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Playwrights Festival\u003c/a> was enough to get me fired up about the possibilities of Kevin Oakes’ latest work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play opens with an extended monologue by the anonymous main character that instantly establishes the disoriented future noir setting for the play. The main character, ably played by Jason Wong, is soon set on his quest to discover his past while navigating the mysterious agency he works for, its ties to a questionable scientific institute, and meeting the assorted types any good noir detective should meet on his quest. Wong, who was a revelation as the anguished and painfully vulnerable lead in Crowded Fire’s production of \u003cb>Porcelain\u003c/b> last year, envelops his character in the cool mystery of a hardboiled protagonist from a \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Haruki Murakami\u003c/a> story. Meanwhile, the backdrop of sentient animals living alongside humans can’t help but evoke Jonathan Lethem’s jittery \u003cb>Gun with Occasional Music\u003c/b>. In fact, the play feels descended from a number of noble antecedents including Franz Kafka and Philip K. Dick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The only reference that receives a name in the work is Orson Welles, who plays a very special role here, one which I am eager to see realized in the full production. And despite the fact that the plot fits into the mold of \u003cb>Bladerunner\u003c/b>-like future noir, the play remains highly original and looks like it will make full use of the live production format when fully staged. The reading featured only the first half of the play, and the audience let out an audible sigh after the lights came up, releasing the tension that had built up throughout. The cast, who realized their characters remarkably well for an on-book reading, then came out to sit through the talkback with the audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Playwrights Foundation is presenting its 30th anniversary Bay Area Playwright’s Festival, a collection of readings of new works by some of the most promising and innovative playwrights in the country. Readings of works in progress allow the playwright to gauge the audience experience and interpretation, polish language and stage cues, and visualize what so far has been primarily an ink and paper production. Readings also give production companies a chance to see what’s out there in the way of new material that they may want to take on the following year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Out of the readings this year, \u003cb>Mr. Fujiyama’s Electric Beach\u003c/b> is a special case — it is part of the Playwright Foundation’s Producing Partnerships Initiative, which helps incubate a new work from start to finish, in this case working with the Cutting Ball Theater production company which co-commissioned the work. Kevin Oakes has eschewed the more isolationist model of writing to forge a close relationship with director Rob Melrose, dramaturge Amy Mueller and the cast and artistic team in developing \u003cb>Mr. Fujiyama’s Electric Beach\u003c/b>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amy Mueller is not only dramaturge for this production, but is also directing another work in the festival and Artistic Director for the Playwrights Foundation. In the latter capacity, she has spent the last seven years steering the Foundation to ramp up the opportunities and resources made available in the Bay Area for emerging playwrights. Over the past 30 years, alumni of the festival have won worldwide acclaim and every prestigious award in theater. This year’s festival features ten works, six full-length and four shorts selected from a nationwide selection process of over 400 works. Each of the plays presented this weekend will be available to sample next weekend as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a full program, visit the \u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=48\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Playwrights Foundation\u003c/a>. And look for the world premiere of \u003cb>Mr. Fujiyama’s Electric Beach\u003c/b> in February 2008 with Cutting Ball Theater.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Thread is among the most important materials in the universe. Chances are, unless you’re a nudist, thread is touching you right now. It holds our clothing together, makes our bed sheets soft, heals wounds, binds furniture coverings and car upholstery, and makes our window shades go up and down. It is likely that not a day goes by that thread doesn’t touch your life, and in the second show at her new Oakland gallery, curator Kim Johansson chose it as the medium of focus. Eight divergent artists are represented in the group show entitled \u003cb>Thread\u003c/b>, and are unified by a common medium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Case exhibits canvases of patched fabric, paint, and various industrial parts. Influenced by life in Martinez, Case grew up surrounded by oil refineries and a family in the textile industry. He globs dark acrylic, soot-like paint onto the surface, surrounding industrial-looking forms made of dirty sewn canvas scraps. One abstract piece was titled \u003cb>Dinosaur\u003c/b> but looked nothing like a prehistoric lizard unless, of course, you have some imagination. Fossil fuel doesn’t look like a dinosaur either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the most amazing piece in the show is internationally-renowned artist, Devorah Sperber’s installation of 500 spools of thread in muted shades stacked symmetrically and suspended from silver ball chains. The amazing part is the “viewing sphere” centered strategically on the piece, a few feet away. The sphere is a simple clear acrylic ball placed atop a black metal stand. When you peer through it, the spools hanging from the wall shrink and invert, and before you know it, you’re looking at a tiny blurred image of Grant Wood’s famous American Gothic painting of a farm couple from 1930. Utterly surprising, Sperber’s work has created an unimaginable illusion. At first glance, you would’ve never known that simple technology could turn several hundred spools of thread into such a recognizable image.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s Steve MacDonald was an obvious choice for the exhibit, as he is quickly becoming one of the most recognized male embroidery artists in the Bay Area arts scene. MacDonald — who recently designed the new Modest Mouse tour t-shirt — was showing large-scale golden landscapes stitched with his signature red thread. Two smaller pieces titled \u003cb>Ramblin Worker Cargo Ship\u003c/b> and \u003cb>Embroidered Op Art\u003c/b> were delightful and inviting. The latter was made up of blocks of rectangular stitched stripes but it made my eyeballs jiggle, causing an optical freak-out due to the juxtaposition of color, line, and threadwork. The image was reminiscent of stacked shipping containers, maybe because a picture of a ship hung just above it. With a friendly white puff drifting out of its smoke stack, the ship worked together with the op art piece to create a feeling of nostalgic shipyard imagery, reminding me of those colorful K Line cargo containers stacked near the East side of the Bay Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another favorite series of works was Tucker Schwarz’s sweetly stitched line drawings of buildings, trees and power lines. Inspired by her own photographs of local neighborhoods, Shwarz sews on raw muslin, leaving colorful thread ends hanging, lightly veiling the images. At the front of the gallery, Christy Matson’s interactive \u003cb>Gradient Noise\u003c/b> appears to be a basic woven length of patterned fabric, until you notice a speaker and a box with a switch that says “pitch” and “thresh” hanging next to it. When the switch is flipped, the piece (woven with thread and copper wire) will make different noises depending on how close you bring your hand to the wall, creating art that talks back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Johansson Projects gallery is a perfect addition to Oakland’s art strip at 23rd and Telegraph. It has a ceiling of dried green moss and holds a promising future as \u003cb>Thread\u003c/b> was an impressive and memorable exhibit. An often-unsung genre, fiber art is one that can feel most mysterious, yet closest to home. Its tactility and familiar qualities add to fiber’s allure, and it has a transcendental way of reminding a viewer of old memories, such as time spent in your granny’s sewing room or a favorite old teddy bear. So get dressed in your best threads, floss your teeth and lace up your shoes — it’s time to discover a new art space in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thread\u003c/b> runs through August 25, 2007 at Johansson Projects.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another favorite series of works was Tucker Schwarz’s sweetly stitched line drawings of buildings, trees and power lines. Inspired by her own photographs of local neighborhoods, Shwarz sews on raw muslin, leaving colorful thread ends hanging, lightly veiling the images. At the front of the gallery, Christy Matson’s interactive \u003cb>Gradient Noise\u003c/b> appears to be a basic woven length of patterned fabric, until you notice a speaker and a box with a switch that says “pitch” and “thresh” hanging next to it. When the switch is flipped, the piece (woven with thread and copper wire) will make different noises depending on how close you bring your hand to the wall, creating art that talks back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Johansson Projects gallery is a perfect addition to Oakland’s art strip at 23rd and Telegraph. It has a ceiling of dried green moss and holds a promising future as \u003cb>Thread\u003c/b> was an impressive and memorable exhibit. An often-unsung genre, fiber art is one that can feel most mysterious, yet closest to home. Its tactility and familiar qualities add to fiber’s allure, and it has a transcendental way of reminding a viewer of old memories, such as time spent in your granny’s sewing room or a favorite old teddy bear. So get dressed in your best threads, floss your teeth and lace up your shoes — it’s time to discover a new art space in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thread\u003c/b> runs through August 25, 2007 at Johansson Projects.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Over the past 20-some years, I’ve spent a good amount of time observing drag queens, cheering them on and shoving more than few hard-earned dollars down their tissue-stuffed brassieres. When my very liberal older sister eloped to Vegas in the early ’80s, the only attendees at her vodka-soaked, post-nuptial bridal shower were the happy couple, yours truly (then 11 years old) and a posse of drag queens in full regalia. I’ve put in my time at \u003ca href=\"http://www.trannyshack.com\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Trannyshack\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.peacheschrist.com\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Midnight Mass\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.auntcharlieslounge.com\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Aunt Charlie’s\u003c/a>. Hell, I’m not ashamed to admit that I, like many inebriated gay men at Halloween, have even donned a beat-up wig myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason I share this information is because, while I don’t proclaim to be a drag queen aficionado, I’d like to think I’ve learned a thing or two about their unique art form over the course of my life. And yet, nothing could quite prepare me or my unsuspecting companion for the visual and auditory assault that is \u003cb>Kiki and Herb: Alive From Broadway\u003c/b>, now at American Conservatory Theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drag queens being notoriously high-maintenance (“drag time” generally means hours late) it seemed appropriate that the show started an hour later than I thought it was supposed to. So my date and I headed to the Redwood Room to kill some time. Several shots of tequila later, our dignity hanging by a thread, we tottered back to the theater, and resisted the temptation to order more cocktails before taking our seats. As the curtain rose to reveal a surrealistic set that’s been described as “Salvador Dalà working in Las Vegas,” and the audience began to scream wildly, it quickly became apparent this wasn’t going to be just another night at A.C.T.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For 90 minutes or so, drag phenomenon Justin Bond steamrolls over the audience as Kiki Durane, an all too jaded, 76-year-old drunken cabaret chanteuse, while her sidekick Kenny Mellman frantically bangs on a massive grand piano as Herb, whom Kiki describes as a “gay Jew-tard foundling I hooked up with back at the institutional.” Order a strong drink and check any vestiges of political correctness as you stumble into the theater. Audience members are not only allowed to bring cocktails into the theater for this show, they’re encouraged to do so. And frankly… ladies and gentlemen (as veteran lounge lizard Kiki refers to the audience, about every 30 seconds or so)… for those who don’t get into hyper-exaggerated drag at an almost ear-shattering level of amplification, a couple of whiskey sours might be what it takes to get through this theatrical battering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for the rest of us, the Tony-nominated \u003cb>Kiki and Herb: Alive From Broadway\u003c/b> is a wonderfully bizarre and brilliantly executed amalgamation of performance art genres, all hiding under the guise of sloppy, drunken high camp. The duo’s rollicking musical book finds its roots in such wide-ranging sources as Radiohead, Public Enemy and Scissor Sisters (with whom Bond and Mellman have toured) to the painfully ’80s Alphaville. A rethinking of Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne,” during which a weepy Kiki recalls a reunion with her long-lost daughter Miss D, is only one of several moments in the show that are surprisingly touching. (Especially given that she states up-front that such moments are completely manufactured.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the evening progresses, Kiki gets seemingly drunker, and as with most drunks, her eyelids become heavier, her hair gets messier and her set-up stories become alternately funnier, angrier and more long-winded, the boozy effect made all the more dramatic by a meticulously placed rhinestone under each eye. In the hands of a less experienced actor, antics such as this could easily become tiresome, but Bond’s skillful performance transcends typical drag schtick, incorporating a mesmerizing mix of biting social and political commentary, and rueful recollections of a lifetime filled with painful, hysterical memories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite their agreement to die upon the completion of a performance at Carnegie Hall a few years ago, Kiki and Herb are in fact alive, ladies and gentlemen, and their performance will leave you feeling the same way. Don’t miss this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kiki and Herb: Alive From Broadway\u003c/b> runs through July 29 at A.C.T. \u003ca href=\"http://act-sf.org/index.cfm?s_id=&pid=tkt_kah\" target=\"offfsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Get tickets and information\u003c/a> (at act.org).\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Over the past 20-some years, I’ve spent a good amount of time observing drag queens, cheering them on and shoving more than few hard-earned dollars down their tissue-stuffed brassieres. When my very liberal older sister eloped to Vegas in the early ’80s, the only attendees at her vodka-soaked, post-nuptial bridal shower were the happy couple, yours truly (then 11 years old) and a posse of drag queens in full regalia. I’ve put in my time at \u003ca href=\"http://www.trannyshack.com\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Trannyshack\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.peacheschrist.com\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Midnight Mass\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.auntcharlieslounge.com\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Aunt Charlie’s\u003c/a>. Hell, I’m not ashamed to admit that I, like many inebriated gay men at Halloween, have even donned a beat-up wig myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason I share this information is because, while I don’t proclaim to be a drag queen aficionado, I’d like to think I’ve learned a thing or two about their unique art form over the course of my life. And yet, nothing could quite prepare me or my unsuspecting companion for the visual and auditory assault that is \u003cb>Kiki and Herb: Alive From Broadway\u003c/b>, now at American Conservatory Theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drag queens being notoriously high-maintenance (“drag time” generally means hours late) it seemed appropriate that the show started an hour later than I thought it was supposed to. So my date and I headed to the Redwood Room to kill some time. Several shots of tequila later, our dignity hanging by a thread, we tottered back to the theater, and resisted the temptation to order more cocktails before taking our seats. As the curtain rose to reveal a surrealistic set that’s been described as “Salvador Dalà working in Las Vegas,” and the audience began to scream wildly, it quickly became apparent this wasn’t going to be just another night at A.C.T.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For 90 minutes or so, drag phenomenon Justin Bond steamrolls over the audience as Kiki Durane, an all too jaded, 76-year-old drunken cabaret chanteuse, while her sidekick Kenny Mellman frantically bangs on a massive grand piano as Herb, whom Kiki describes as a “gay Jew-tard foundling I hooked up with back at the institutional.” Order a strong drink and check any vestiges of political correctness as you stumble into the theater. Audience members are not only allowed to bring cocktails into the theater for this show, they’re encouraged to do so. And frankly… ladies and gentlemen (as veteran lounge lizard Kiki refers to the audience, about every 30 seconds or so)… for those who don’t get into hyper-exaggerated drag at an almost ear-shattering level of amplification, a couple of whiskey sours might be what it takes to get through this theatrical battering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for the rest of us, the Tony-nominated \u003cb>Kiki and Herb: Alive From Broadway\u003c/b> is a wonderfully bizarre and brilliantly executed amalgamation of performance art genres, all hiding under the guise of sloppy, drunken high camp. The duo’s rollicking musical book finds its roots in such wide-ranging sources as Radiohead, Public Enemy and Scissor Sisters (with whom Bond and Mellman have toured) to the painfully ’80s Alphaville. A rethinking of Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne,” during which a weepy Kiki recalls a reunion with her long-lost daughter Miss D, is only one of several moments in the show that are surprisingly touching. (Especially given that she states up-front that such moments are completely manufactured.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the evening progresses, Kiki gets seemingly drunker, and as with most drunks, her eyelids become heavier, her hair gets messier and her set-up stories become alternately funnier, angrier and more long-winded, the boozy effect made all the more dramatic by a meticulously placed rhinestone under each eye. In the hands of a less experienced actor, antics such as this could easily become tiresome, but Bond’s skillful performance transcends typical drag schtick, incorporating a mesmerizing mix of biting social and political commentary, and rueful recollections of a lifetime filled with painful, hysterical memories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite their agreement to die upon the completion of a performance at Carnegie Hall a few years ago, Kiki and Herb are in fact alive, ladies and gentlemen, and their performance will leave you feeling the same way. Don’t miss this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kiki and Herb: Alive From Broadway\u003c/b> runs through July 29 at A.C.T. \u003ca href=\"http://act-sf.org/index.cfm?s_id=&pid=tkt_kah\" target=\"offfsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Get tickets and information\u003c/a> (at act.org).\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>I started college right around the time of the famed Tech Boom in Silicon Valley. Having grown up in the Bay Area, suddenly having the price of EVERYTHING skyrocket, not being able to drive anywhere without getting snarled in a mess of angry traffic, and being a forlorn speck of black in a sea of blue button-up shirts and khaki pants was an immense shock to the system. Ten plus years on, I’ve grown accustomed to the geekspeak and tech toys that permeate the region. But for the most part, the technological savvy that grew the Valley to its present size and scope shot right over my head. So seeing \u003cb>Space Is Blue (and the Birds Fly in It)\u003c/b> where 70 percent of the dialogue concerns the great mysteries of physics was kind of a stretch for me. But it’s a highly appropriate choice of material for Pear Avenue Theatre, a fairly new community theatre in Mountain View.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gregory Meyer’s new play revolves around Philip, a British boy genius with a debilitating nervous system disorder that leaves him strapped to a wheelchair. He leaves his orphanage in England to undergo an experimental surgery that may correct his condition, and is placed by his doctor in a boarding house that takes in the riff and the raff of the local academic community. Helen, the proprietor of the boarding house, and Corinne, a kooky literature professor from Hungary form strong attachments to the bright and extremely polite young Phillip, who bowls them over with his brilliance in physics. In the meantime, Phillip manages to intimidate graduate student Walter, with both his revolutionary ideas and his quest for Helen’s affections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This might have been a more convincing premise had the young boy genius not been quite so very young. I’m not sure a nine or ten year old makes for a brilliant physicist AND convincing competition for a strapping young graduate student, and Philip’s dialogue often sounded better suited to an octogenarian than a middle schooler. The audience is also invited to suspend a healthy amount of skepticism in accepting a brain surgery involving incisions into the skull which results in a patient who cannot speak for a week while waiting for the stitches to come out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The actors make a valiant effort to keep the ponderous academic dialogue and often heavy-handed plot devices from overwhelming the momentum of the play and often succeed. Philip is played by the immensely likeable George Murrell, who faces a Herculean task in memorizing and delivering a huge amount of material on how time is the only immutable force and logic is the fundamental quantum. There is a key shift in his personality in the final scene that is less than convincing, but by then the gaping black holes in the plot make this a moot matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susan Jackson gives a spirited performance as the Hungarian literary academic and Rob Dario as Walter, the grad student, makes a convincing character out of often contradictory lines. I was also highly impressed with the elaborate set that allowed for very dynamic staging and the delightfully appropriate costumes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The matinee performance I attended was at nearly full capacity, suggesting that Pear Avenue Theatre, with its unlikely location in a small office park near the Shoreline movie theaters in Mountain View, could benefit from a larger space with more seating. While their season ends with this production, they are already gearing up for the next, with seven productions in the works starting with Anton Checkov’s \u003cb>Three Sisters\u003c/b> in September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Space Is Blue (and the Birds Fly in It)\u003c/b> runs through July 15, 2007 at the Pear Avenue Theatre in Mountain View. For tickets and information visiting\u003ca href=\"http://www.thepear.org\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">thepear.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>“That was like the Log Flume,” said my friend Jake as we left the makeshift “Holehead Playhouse” in the heart of San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. I looked at him quizzically. His face and hair were spattered with what looked remarkably like dried blood, and though I lacked a pocket mirror, I was quite sure mine were as well. “You know, at an amusement park,” he explained. “The Log Floom is kind of a boring ride, ’cause you just sit there, but you get wet, so everyone’s really into it.” This brilliant metaphor was in reference to the performance we had just seen — or, rather, participated in: \u003cb>Night of the Living Dead: Live!\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of this year’s San Francisco Independent Film Festival, not-for-profit theater company The Primitive Screwheads have adapted George Romero’s screen classic for the stage — a small stage in the middle of an unmarked warehouse on Indiana Avenue, that is. We arrived a little early and were herded to a merch-and-refreshments area to wait until curtain. Items for sale included cocktails, t-shirts, stickers, and — disturbingly — ponchos. Ponchos? The Screwheads’ website had warned against wearing nice clothes (“WARNING: BLOOD AND GORE WILL SHOWER DOWN UPON THE AUDIENCE IN AN UNHOLY THUNDERSTORM FROM HELL!!!!”) but I had taken it lightly and brought only a white t-shirt to cover up the decent blouse I had worn to work that day. I started to get nervous. A blood-and-gore-crusted zombie lunged against the bars of a cage in the corner, grasping at passersby, rattling the chains around his wrists and moaning loudly, and I could see large plastic tarpulins draped over the chairs in which we’d soon be sitting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I was soon to discover, the Screwheads are not to be taken lightly. Though their interpretation (self-described as parodic) of the Original Zombie Movie is heavy on the jokes, they are NOT KIDDING when it comes to special effects. The fake limbs are satisfyingly disgusting, the zombies sufficiently creepy — especially when they lurch at you as you wait in line for the bathroom during intermission. But what really got my heart racing were my desperate attempts to avoid the bright red flood let forth into the audience each time a character was bitten, shot, or hacked-at with a hand-axe, which was about every five minutes. From carefully concealed Super-Soakers came long and generous spurts of what looked and smelled like raspberry Kool-Aid, hitting audience members from every angle. The tarpulins were helpful at first but after about 30 minutes we were pretty much soaked and at the end of the show, just when we thought it was finally over, crew members stormed the aisles with large buckets, which they proceeded to empty mercilessly onto our heads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re seeking fine art, \u003cb>Night of the Living Dead: Live!\u003c/b>, as you might have suspected, is not for you. The script is flat, the acting mediocre (think bad Southern accents, lots of wailing and arm-flailing), the scene changes sloppy. But if you love zombies so much you could die (as many people in the audience clearly did; someone sitting behind me was wearing a press badge for “The Dead Report,” a zombie news and reviews podcast) or you’re just a fan of the good-old Log Flume, then head to the Holehead Playhouse before it’s too late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Night of the Living Dead: Live!\u003c/b> runs through June 23. \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfindie.com/site/node/663\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Get tickets and information\u003c/a> (at sfindie.com).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "\"That was like the Log Flume,\" said my friend Jake as we left the makeshift \"Holehead Playhouse\" in the heart of San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood. I looked at him quizzically. His face and hair were spattered with what looked remarkably like dried blood, and though I lacked a pocket mirror, I was quite sure mine were as well. \"You know, at an amusement park,\" he explained. \"The Log Floom is kind of a boring ride, 'cause you just sit there, but you get wet, so everyone's really into it.\" This brilliant metaphor was in reference to the performance we had just seen -- or, rather, participated in: \u003cb>Night of the Living Dead: Live!\u003c/b>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>“That was like the Log Flume,” said my friend Jake as we left the makeshift “Holehead Playhouse” in the heart of San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. I looked at him quizzically. His face and hair were spattered with what looked remarkably like dried blood, and though I lacked a pocket mirror, I was quite sure mine were as well. “You know, at an amusement park,” he explained. “The Log Floom is kind of a boring ride, ’cause you just sit there, but you get wet, so everyone’s really into it.” This brilliant metaphor was in reference to the performance we had just seen — or, rather, participated in: \u003cb>Night of the Living Dead: Live!\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of this year’s San Francisco Independent Film Festival, not-for-profit theater company The Primitive Screwheads have adapted George Romero’s screen classic for the stage — a small stage in the middle of an unmarked warehouse on Indiana Avenue, that is. We arrived a little early and were herded to a merch-and-refreshments area to wait until curtain. Items for sale included cocktails, t-shirts, stickers, and — disturbingly — ponchos. Ponchos? The Screwheads’ website had warned against wearing nice clothes (“WARNING: BLOOD AND GORE WILL SHOWER DOWN UPON THE AUDIENCE IN AN UNHOLY THUNDERSTORM FROM HELL!!!!”) but I had taken it lightly and brought only a white t-shirt to cover up the decent blouse I had worn to work that day. I started to get nervous. A blood-and-gore-crusted zombie lunged against the bars of a cage in the corner, grasping at passersby, rattling the chains around his wrists and moaning loudly, and I could see large plastic tarpulins draped over the chairs in which we’d soon be sitting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I was soon to discover, the Screwheads are not to be taken lightly. Though their interpretation (self-described as parodic) of the Original Zombie Movie is heavy on the jokes, they are NOT KIDDING when it comes to special effects. The fake limbs are satisfyingly disgusting, the zombies sufficiently creepy — especially when they lurch at you as you wait in line for the bathroom during intermission. But what really got my heart racing were my desperate attempts to avoid the bright red flood let forth into the audience each time a character was bitten, shot, or hacked-at with a hand-axe, which was about every five minutes. From carefully concealed Super-Soakers came long and generous spurts of what looked and smelled like raspberry Kool-Aid, hitting audience members from every angle. The tarpulins were helpful at first but after about 30 minutes we were pretty much soaked and at the end of the show, just when we thought it was finally over, crew members stormed the aisles with large buckets, which they proceeded to empty mercilessly onto our heads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re seeking fine art, \u003cb>Night of the Living Dead: Live!\u003c/b>, as you might have suspected, is not for you. The script is flat, the acting mediocre (think bad Southern accents, lots of wailing and arm-flailing), the scene changes sloppy. But if you love zombies so much you could die (as many people in the audience clearly did; someone sitting behind me was wearing a press badge for “The Dead Report,” a zombie news and reviews podcast) or you’re just a fan of the good-old Log Flume, then head to the Holehead Playhouse before it’s too late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Night of the Living Dead: Live!\u003c/b> runs through June 23. \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfindie.com/site/node/663\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Get tickets and information\u003c/a> (at sfindie.com).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>I’ll admit it: the words “sketch comedy” didn’t inspire optimism in me. Rather, I tended to imagine hammy, self-congratulatory acting, and awkwardly long skits centered on one flimsy premise. I’m a fan of movie comedies, even some sitcoms, but sometimes the labored zaniness to get people laughing lands with all the subtlety of a lead balloon. So imagine my surprise when I left the opening night of local comedy troupe Killing My Lobster’s new show with a strange happy sensation in my heart… one that came from seeing something, um, actually FUNNY.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show, \u003cb>Killing My Lobster Saves The Day\u003c/b>, is a themed send-up of all things capes and tights and comic books: “comedic vignettes for the superheroically silly.” The show rescued my view of sketch comedy in a few key ways. First of all, all of the performers are fantastic and energetic, and seem to be having an absolute blast on stage. Each of the six actors rotates through roles with a chameleon-like ease and endless energy that leaps over “impressive” in a single bound, and lands straight on incredible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even more importantly, though, the writing and staging is professional and surprisingly fresh. Familiar staples of the genre do bear the brunt of a few jokes — capes and tights are given a rather scathing visual and verbal treatment, and phone booths and overly sincere heroics appear in quite a few of the jokes. But the show’s use of the expected clichés ends there. It would’ve been too easy to have sketches full of nerdy, sexually repressed fanboys \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ufaBKdY60w\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">LARPing\u003c/a> the epic battle of Kirk vs. Picard, but KML opts for a more original take on comic culture. Instead of wrapping their sketches in a kind of pretentious cleverness, the knowing wink-wink of stiff satire, the KML crew performs with a light touch. The troupe lands the jokes and the funny voices and the ridiculous scenarios with the driving force of just making something fun, not overly clever or snide or even all that complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t want to describe the sketches here, and ruin their surprises, but I will mention that one of the most hilarious and effortlessly clever sketches was a slideshow of the bizarre, suggestive imagery buried in old \u003cb>Superman\u003c/b> comic pages. Set to a wonderfully over-the-top pop ballad, the segment had the audience roaring, and added a nice, researched credibility to the troupe’s dissection of superhero lore. Clearly, comics and fantasy and caped crusaders are things the troupe knows well — well enough to take the subject in a new direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Killing My Lobster Saves The Day\u003c/b> runs through June 16th at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"https://www.killingmylobster.com/tix/\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit killingmylobster.com.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>I’ll admit it: the words “sketch comedy” didn’t inspire optimism in me. Rather, I tended to imagine hammy, self-congratulatory acting, and awkwardly long skits centered on one flimsy premise. I’m a fan of movie comedies, even some sitcoms, but sometimes the labored zaniness to get people laughing lands with all the subtlety of a lead balloon. So imagine my surprise when I left the opening night of local comedy troupe Killing My Lobster’s new show with a strange happy sensation in my heart… one that came from seeing something, um, actually FUNNY.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show, \u003cb>Killing My Lobster Saves The Day\u003c/b>, is a themed send-up of all things capes and tights and comic books: “comedic vignettes for the superheroically silly.” The show rescued my view of sketch comedy in a few key ways. First of all, all of the performers are fantastic and energetic, and seem to be having an absolute blast on stage. Each of the six actors rotates through roles with a chameleon-like ease and endless energy that leaps over “impressive” in a single bound, and lands straight on incredible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even more importantly, though, the writing and staging is professional and surprisingly fresh. Familiar staples of the genre do bear the brunt of a few jokes — capes and tights are given a rather scathing visual and verbal treatment, and phone booths and overly sincere heroics appear in quite a few of the jokes. But the show’s use of the expected clichés ends there. It would’ve been too easy to have sketches full of nerdy, sexually repressed fanboys \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ufaBKdY60w\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">LARPing\u003c/a> the epic battle of Kirk vs. Picard, but KML opts for a more original take on comic culture. Instead of wrapping their sketches in a kind of pretentious cleverness, the knowing wink-wink of stiff satire, the KML crew performs with a light touch. The troupe lands the jokes and the funny voices and the ridiculous scenarios with the driving force of just making something fun, not overly clever or snide or even all that complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t want to describe the sketches here, and ruin their surprises, but I will mention that one of the most hilarious and effortlessly clever sketches was a slideshow of the bizarre, suggestive imagery buried in old \u003cb>Superman\u003c/b> comic pages. Set to a wonderfully over-the-top pop ballad, the segment had the audience roaring, and added a nice, researched credibility to the troupe’s dissection of superhero lore. Clearly, comics and fantasy and caped crusaders are things the troupe knows well — well enough to take the subject in a new direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Killing My Lobster Saves The Day\u003c/b> runs through June 16th at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"https://www.killingmylobster.com/tix/\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit killingmylobster.com.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.puc.edu\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Pacific Union College\u003c/a> (PUC) is a four-year liberal arts college located in Angwin, a small town nestled deep within the gorgeous greenery of Napa County. It is also a \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Seventh Day Adventist\u003c/a> campus, which, according to their website, “offers an excellent Christ-centered education.” As it turns out, PUC also offers the opportunity to share in the experience of a religious community examining its history and roots in \u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b>, a deeply moving and expertly executed theatrical treatment of the life and impact of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_G._White\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Ellen G. White\u003c/a>, a key founder of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and also founder of the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I didn’t know much about Seventh Day Adventism before seeing \u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b>. I might not even know it existed (14 million strong worldwide in 2006) if it weren’t for a couple of friends with Adventist upbringings. One of them is Mei Ann Teo, a Bay Area theatre director whose past projects in San Francisco include \u003ca href=\"http://www.theactorscollective.org/reviews/boy_Girl.html\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Boy Gets Girl\u003c/a> and last year’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.crowdedfire.org/porcelain.shtml\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Porcelain\u003c/a>. Mei Ann went to PUC, and is now their Resident Artist. She had mentioned a project she was doing there about Seventh Day Adventism, that was taking its cues and format from \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laramie_Project\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">The Laramie Project\u003c/a>, drawing on over 200 interviews with members of the Seventh Day Adventist community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like \u003cb>The Laramie Project\u003c/b>, \u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b> takes on controversial matter in a documentary theater format, attempting to present an entire community’s reactions to a heated topic through a series of short, punctuated scenes. In this case, the controversy relates to the role of influential founder Ellen G. White, and the atmosphere of suppression and fear that grew up around discussion of her life and works. White’s prophetic ministry and writings, particularly her focus on education, health and vegetarianism, have had a huge impact on how the religion has developed and grown — despite accusations of mental illness and plagiarism among other concerns. \u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b> spans the four generations of Adventism and takes its climax from an event it calls “The Crash” — a period of suppression of scholarly exploration of White’s life and works in the seventies that has had a lasting impact on the religion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In journalism, one of the most difficult issues faced on a daily basis is how to present as unbiased an account as possible, even when presenting issues that are inherently matters of opinion. The most common solution is to present both sides of the issue — as if there are only two sides to any given issue. \u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b> achieves a communal truth through the willingness of interviewees to be honest and open. The sensitive writing does not judge individual characters for their opinions, but instead highlights the subtleties that lie behind the overt history. Including the process of writing the play as a major theme also heightens the impact of the story, as it gently points out parallels between “The Crash” and the current atmosphere, and offers the actors a way to include their opinions without having to indirectly comment through their characters. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play was presented in mini-scenes that flowed quickly from one to another, with a minimal set of two large movable red books (White’s 100+ published works were bound in red) and an innovative backdrop of laundry lines with clothing props that were gradually used up throughout the show. Music was also a powerful force throughout the show, provided by the actors humming and singing mostly traditional hymns central to their community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The acting was natural and delivered with conviction — one actor mentioned that it was easier to be immersed in this production, because he understood the themes and people from his upbringing. Although not all of the numerous characters in the show are named, many of the key figures from “The Crash” are, and hearing their words spoken by the actors was all the more electric for knowing that many of the audience members present actually lived through that time and knew — and in some cases were — the characters in the play. In fact, one of the actors in the play, Greg Schneider, is a professor at PUC and plays himself and his wife in the production. Schneider was at the University of Chicago in the seventies, and spoke about the impact of several books published during that time. Another key character in the play was his student, and is now the Chair of his department at PUC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The atmosphere in the theatre during and after the production was intense and emotionally charged; it seemed like everyone in the room was aware they were witnessing and participating in an important moment in their history. The entire audience stayed for a post-play Q&A session with the cast and crew. I was struck by the earnestness in the room, and the willingness to ask and answer difficult questions. Audience members asked about not only the process of making the play, but about major themes and also public reaction they had received so far. The father of one of the actors was candid about his worry for his daughter, and his warning that it might get her in trouble. He finished by saying that the production brought more variety of perspectives than he had expected, and that he didn’t think it was going to create as much uproar in the community as he had originally suspected. Through the Q&A, I also learned that one audience member and interviewee (and representative of the Ellen G. White estate) had walked out on opening night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b> is without a doubt a seminal moment in the history of Seventh Day Adventism, but I shared fully in the experience that night, and left with profound respect for the people I saw — the people who had the courage to ask questions both during “The Crash” and now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b> is extending its run through the first week in April (April 3,4,5 and 7). Admission is free of charge; donations highly encouraged. For more information, and reservations email \u003ca href=\"mailto:redbooksEGW@gmail.com\">redbooksEGW@gmail.com\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.puc.edu\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Pacific Union College\u003c/a> (PUC) is a four-year liberal arts college located in Angwin, a small town nestled deep within the gorgeous greenery of Napa County. It is also a \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Seventh Day Adventist\u003c/a> campus, which, according to their website, “offers an excellent Christ-centered education.” As it turns out, PUC also offers the opportunity to share in the experience of a religious community examining its history and roots in \u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b>, a deeply moving and expertly executed theatrical treatment of the life and impact of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_G._White\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Ellen G. White\u003c/a>, a key founder of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and also founder of the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I didn’t know much about Seventh Day Adventism before seeing \u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b>. I might not even know it existed (14 million strong worldwide in 2006) if it weren’t for a couple of friends with Adventist upbringings. One of them is Mei Ann Teo, a Bay Area theatre director whose past projects in San Francisco include \u003ca href=\"http://www.theactorscollective.org/reviews/boy_Girl.html\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Boy Gets Girl\u003c/a> and last year’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.crowdedfire.org/porcelain.shtml\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Porcelain\u003c/a>. Mei Ann went to PUC, and is now their Resident Artist. She had mentioned a project she was doing there about Seventh Day Adventism, that was taking its cues and format from \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laramie_Project\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">The Laramie Project\u003c/a>, drawing on over 200 interviews with members of the Seventh Day Adventist community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like \u003cb>The Laramie Project\u003c/b>, \u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b> takes on controversial matter in a documentary theater format, attempting to present an entire community’s reactions to a heated topic through a series of short, punctuated scenes. In this case, the controversy relates to the role of influential founder Ellen G. White, and the atmosphere of suppression and fear that grew up around discussion of her life and works. White’s prophetic ministry and writings, particularly her focus on education, health and vegetarianism, have had a huge impact on how the religion has developed and grown — despite accusations of mental illness and plagiarism among other concerns. \u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b> spans the four generations of Adventism and takes its climax from an event it calls “The Crash” — a period of suppression of scholarly exploration of White’s life and works in the seventies that has had a lasting impact on the religion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In journalism, one of the most difficult issues faced on a daily basis is how to present as unbiased an account as possible, even when presenting issues that are inherently matters of opinion. The most common solution is to present both sides of the issue — as if there are only two sides to any given issue. \u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b> achieves a communal truth through the willingness of interviewees to be honest and open. The sensitive writing does not judge individual characters for their opinions, but instead highlights the subtleties that lie behind the overt history. Including the process of writing the play as a major theme also heightens the impact of the story, as it gently points out parallels between “The Crash” and the current atmosphere, and offers the actors a way to include their opinions without having to indirectly comment through their characters. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play was presented in mini-scenes that flowed quickly from one to another, with a minimal set of two large movable red books (White’s 100+ published works were bound in red) and an innovative backdrop of laundry lines with clothing props that were gradually used up throughout the show. Music was also a powerful force throughout the show, provided by the actors humming and singing mostly traditional hymns central to their community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The acting was natural and delivered with conviction — one actor mentioned that it was easier to be immersed in this production, because he understood the themes and people from his upbringing. Although not all of the numerous characters in the show are named, many of the key figures from “The Crash” are, and hearing their words spoken by the actors was all the more electric for knowing that many of the audience members present actually lived through that time and knew — and in some cases were — the characters in the play. In fact, one of the actors in the play, Greg Schneider, is a professor at PUC and plays himself and his wife in the production. Schneider was at the University of Chicago in the seventies, and spoke about the impact of several books published during that time. Another key character in the play was his student, and is now the Chair of his department at PUC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The atmosphere in the theatre during and after the production was intense and emotionally charged; it seemed like everyone in the room was aware they were witnessing and participating in an important moment in their history. The entire audience stayed for a post-play Q&A session with the cast and crew. I was struck by the earnestness in the room, and the willingness to ask and answer difficult questions. Audience members asked about not only the process of making the play, but about major themes and also public reaction they had received so far. The father of one of the actors was candid about his worry for his daughter, and his warning that it might get her in trouble. He finished by saying that the production brought more variety of perspectives than he had expected, and that he didn’t think it was going to create as much uproar in the community as he had originally suspected. Through the Q&A, I also learned that one audience member and interviewee (and representative of the Ellen G. White estate) had walked out on opening night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b> is without a doubt a seminal moment in the history of Seventh Day Adventism, but I shared fully in the experience that night, and left with profound respect for the people I saw — the people who had the courage to ask questions both during “The Crash” and now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Red Books\u003c/b> is extending its run through the first week in April (April 3,4,5 and 7). Admission is free of charge; donations highly encouraged. For more information, and reservations email \u003ca href=\"mailto:redbooksEGW@gmail.com\">redbooksEGW@gmail.com\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Imagine a world where every present action has a historical precursor. Where contemporary behaviors and images hold deep-rooted meanings. Wait, this is the world we live in, and the way social amnesia operates always amazes me. I don’t know how many times my ears have rung from the phrases, “This is a new day” or “Stop living in the past.” And let’s not forget my favorite, “God bless America.” As I sat and engaged with Kirsten Greenidge’s production, \u003cb>Rust\u003c/b>, I found it clever that she illustrated what we so much want to ignore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Set in an unspecified present, \u003cb>Rust\u003c/b> is a bold and abstract story that revolves around Randall Miflin, an African American pro football player whose recent head injury has triggered an awakening. Randall begins taking yoga classes in the forest and demanding that people ‘respect’ him. He starts collecting artifacts, memorabilia, and posters of stereotypical black imagery (Aunt Jemima cookie jars, for example), which he guards with his life, and begins receiving phone calls from an elderly black woman, Ella Mae Walker, who urges Randall to save his people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Randall’s behavior thoroughly confuses his fellow teammate Chunk-Chunk Adams, his materialistic wife, Jeannie, and Bill and Steve, two hilarious sports casters. They don’t understand that Randall’s deceased mother is at the center of his mental unraveling. She never approved of his football image. But why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Football as a form of contemporary blackface minstrelsy was a central theme of \u003cb>Rust\u003c/b>. The “respect” that Randall continually demands becomes a response to the commodification that he’s endured as a black football player. The process of making sports figures, especially black sports figures into sellable commodities and so-called saviors isn’t new; a bed-ridden Mr. Peale calls out to Joe Louis to save him throughout the play, just as Ella Mae Walker repeatedly calls Randall on the phone to save her, so much so that Randall, and the audience, nearly go insane from the phone’s constant ringing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When sportscasters Bill and Steve are interjected into the story, I almost thought I was at home watching \u003cb>Sports Center\u003c/b>, but then something else caught my attention: they had plastic hair! You know the kind that shines and looks like it could be in a cartoon?! This made their presence all the more comical but reminded us of the artificial nature of mainstream sports broadcasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though compact, the stage allowed for action and meaning to merge. Ella Mae Walker, adorned in the traditional red head scarf and large dress of the idealized “Aunt Jemima,” rocks back and forth in a rocking chair while Randall and Chunk-Chunk sit on bales of cotton in the present, playing video games. Ella Mae serves as the back drop for many of the scenes; even ones where she has no speaking role. As a device, I found her presence haunting, it kept reminding me that history is always behind the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All characters in the play evoke different reactions to the racist stereotypes and imagery that Randall “discovers” after his football injury. It is within each character’s way of confronting the problematic nature of these images, and of blackness, that the audience is entertained; a strange, yet appealing mixture of social commentary and comedy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All blackface characters in the play seem to be looking for their family and for “respect.” Two male characters wearing tutus and carrying lanterns, one white and one black, are randomly interspersed throughout, as representations of the awkward re-shaping of blackness in the present. When we later see that Mr. Peale, a character based on “Uncle Ben,” is their father, the connection is made. These subtle, yet powerful connections of historical repression to contemporary contradictions were some of my favorite elements of the production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mikaal Sulaiman’s performance as Randall is one of the strongest in the play. Heck, his was one of the strongest performances I have ever seen! His penetrating, seemingly disturbed expressions and throaty, energetic dialogue fully conveyed his character’s mental strain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The production doesn’t just explode stereotypes, it expands and analyzes them, and actually makes us think about more than syrup when we see Aunt Jemima, or rice when we put Uncle Ben in the shopping cart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rust\u003c/b> is at The Magic Theater in San Francisco through April 1, 2007. For tickets and information visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.magictheatre.org/pages/boxoffice.shtml\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">magictheatre.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though compact, the stage allowed for action and meaning to merge. Ella Mae Walker, adorned in the traditional red head scarf and large dress of the idealized “Aunt Jemima,” rocks back and forth in a rocking chair while Randall and Chunk-Chunk sit on bales of cotton in the present, playing video games. Ella Mae serves as the back drop for many of the scenes; even ones where she has no speaking role. As a device, I found her presence haunting, it kept reminding me that history is always behind the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All characters in the play evoke different reactions to the racist stereotypes and imagery that Randall “discovers” after his football injury. It is within each character’s way of confronting the problematic nature of these images, and of blackness, that the audience is entertained; a strange, yet appealing mixture of social commentary and comedy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All blackface characters in the play seem to be looking for their family and for “respect.” Two male characters wearing tutus and carrying lanterns, one white and one black, are randomly interspersed throughout, as representations of the awkward re-shaping of blackness in the present. When we later see that Mr. Peale, a character based on “Uncle Ben,” is their father, the connection is made. These subtle, yet powerful connections of historical repression to contemporary contradictions were some of my favorite elements of the production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mikaal Sulaiman’s performance as Randall is one of the strongest in the play. Heck, his was one of the strongest performances I have ever seen! His penetrating, seemingly disturbed expressions and throaty, energetic dialogue fully conveyed his character’s mental strain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The production doesn’t just explode stereotypes, it expands and analyzes them, and actually makes us think about more than syrup when we see Aunt Jemima, or rice when we put Uncle Ben in the shopping cart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rust\u003c/b> is at The Magic Theater in San Francisco through April 1, 2007. For tickets and information visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.magictheatre.org/pages/boxoffice.shtml\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">magictheatre.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>“Local community theater” is a term that can evoke terror in the hearts of many — or at least in mine. I’ve had to see friends take on material ranging from \u003cb>Anne of Green Gables\u003c/b> to \u003cb>Fiddler on the Roof\u003c/b>. Schmaltzy material seems to get a lot of play in local theater — perhaps it’s the only way to be financially viable in family-oriented communities. Luckily, local theater in the Bay Area takes on a whole different meaning, often bringing innovative and expert staging to challenging content. Three Wise Monkey’s \u003cb>Bay One Acts Festival\u003c/b> is an opportunity to see what a range of local theater companies are doing without having to see each one on a different night. Each play is written, directed and acted by local Bay Area talent. I saw Program One — the comedies — but this week will feature dramas, followed by a week of plays with a twist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003cb>CAUTION: the (Roughly) True Story of My Parents’ Romance\u003c/b>, writer Lauren Yee tries to distill her parents’ “how we met” story into a frothy romantic comedy, produced by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.asianamericantheater.org\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Asian American Theater Company\u003c/a>. Many of the traditional devices of a modern screwball comedy are thrown in, with a wry narrator, a flashback story structure, and an imaginary confidante for the young lady. Unfortunately, the story never gelled into the charmingly nostalgic trip through 1970s Chinatown I was expecting. I was confused at times by a slightly incoherent story structure and irritated at others by a heavy-handed attempt at addressing cross-cultural conflict. The narrator informed the audience that, and I paraphrase, you can call a Chinaman many things — industrious was mentioned amongst a litany of other aging stereotypes — but you can’t call him tall. Really? I like to think we’re living in a modern age, the age of Yao Ming, in which we don’t need to trot out the old stereotypes just to make the point that Chinese people can be tall. Overcoming flaws in the script, the cast threw themselves wholeheartedly into the story and Randy Nakagawa and Sandy Chen in particular were highly likable as the young lovers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bored, beautiful woman in the tourist town of Yalta. An aging, married lecher who somehow discovers love. A pet dog. If this all sounds familiar to you, you’ve probably read “The Lady with the Pet Dog,” one of Anton Chekhov’s more well-known short stories. I hadn’t had that pleasure before seeing \u003cb>The Pet Dog with the Lady\u003c/b> produced by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.custommade.org\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Custom Made Theatre Company\u003c/a>, but given that the one joke running through the entire play was the fact that the story was being narrated from the pet Pomeranian’s point of view, reading the story beforehand would probably have destroyed any modicum of suspense that remained. The Pomeranian, carrying on in the tradition of A. R. Gurney’s \u003cb>\u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_(play)\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Sylvia\u003c/a>\u003c/b>, is played by a human, wearing a button-down shirt and slacks, pink tie, furry white gloves and dog collar and leash. Sadly, I can’t say the joke was robust enough to carry the production, but all the provocative questions posed by the play kept my attention from straying too far. Such as: Why was the lady dressed in modern French woman garb — complete with gigantic beret — in turn of the century Russia? How did the dog acquire the morals of a Victorian prude? What other stories could benefit from a similar treatment, say, \u003cb>Moby Dick\u003c/b> from the point of the view of the whale? What sort of ensemble would the whale wear to accurately represent his blowhole and powerful tail?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dystopian near-futures are all the rage these days, with manifestos and plotlines referencing 1984 popping up everywhere. \u003ca href=\"http://www.atmostheatre.com\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">AtmosTheatre\u003c/a>‘s\u003cb>The Pheasant\u003c/b> starts from the same source material and races off in the opposite direction, with a broad comedy about a celebrity chef planning a final protest on the eve of the closure of his restaurant in the face of a new government dictum: people can no longer eat freely, but will instead eat government-issued nutritional substances. The chef has decided that he will be cooking and serving himself in a grand gesture. The four characters — high-strung artiste Chef, his cold and arrogant wife Gloria, maudlin martyr sous chef Helen, and a government agent who is secretly a huge gourmand — are depressingly unoriginal. A plot that relies on a sadly absent shock value, grand speeches that sound all-too-familiar, and a thoroughly predictable plot all detract from the momentum of the production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I missed the innovative content I expect from Bay Area productions — none of these plays felt like they were breaking new ground — but this coming week promises a whole new lineup with entirely different material and productions. The \u003cb>Bay One Acts Festival\u003c/b> runs through Mar 4, 2007 at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco. For the \u003ca href=\"http://www.threewisemonkeys.org/boa6syn.html\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">lineup\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.threewisemonkeys.org\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets\u003c/a>, visit threewisemonkeys.org. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>“Local community theater” is a term that can evoke terror in the hearts of many — or at least in mine. I’ve had to see friends take on material ranging from \u003cb>Anne of Green Gables\u003c/b> to \u003cb>Fiddler on the Roof\u003c/b>. Schmaltzy material seems to get a lot of play in local theater — perhaps it’s the only way to be financially viable in family-oriented communities. Luckily, local theater in the Bay Area takes on a whole different meaning, often bringing innovative and expert staging to challenging content. Three Wise Monkey’s \u003cb>Bay One Acts Festival\u003c/b> is an opportunity to see what a range of local theater companies are doing without having to see each one on a different night. Each play is written, directed and acted by local Bay Area talent. I saw Program One — the comedies — but this week will feature dramas, followed by a week of plays with a twist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003cb>CAUTION: the (Roughly) True Story of My Parents’ Romance\u003c/b>, writer Lauren Yee tries to distill her parents’ “how we met” story into a frothy romantic comedy, produced by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.asianamericantheater.org\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Asian American Theater Company\u003c/a>. Many of the traditional devices of a modern screwball comedy are thrown in, with a wry narrator, a flashback story structure, and an imaginary confidante for the young lady. Unfortunately, the story never gelled into the charmingly nostalgic trip through 1970s Chinatown I was expecting. I was confused at times by a slightly incoherent story structure and irritated at others by a heavy-handed attempt at addressing cross-cultural conflict. The narrator informed the audience that, and I paraphrase, you can call a Chinaman many things — industrious was mentioned amongst a litany of other aging stereotypes — but you can’t call him tall. Really? I like to think we’re living in a modern age, the age of Yao Ming, in which we don’t need to trot out the old stereotypes just to make the point that Chinese people can be tall. Overcoming flaws in the script, the cast threw themselves wholeheartedly into the story and Randy Nakagawa and Sandy Chen in particular were highly likable as the young lovers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bored, beautiful woman in the tourist town of Yalta. An aging, married lecher who somehow discovers love. A pet dog. If this all sounds familiar to you, you’ve probably read “The Lady with the Pet Dog,” one of Anton Chekhov’s more well-known short stories. I hadn’t had that pleasure before seeing \u003cb>The Pet Dog with the Lady\u003c/b> produced by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.custommade.org\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Custom Made Theatre Company\u003c/a>, but given that the one joke running through the entire play was the fact that the story was being narrated from the pet Pomeranian’s point of view, reading the story beforehand would probably have destroyed any modicum of suspense that remained. The Pomeranian, carrying on in the tradition of A. R. Gurney’s \u003cb>\u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_(play)\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Sylvia\u003c/a>\u003c/b>, is played by a human, wearing a button-down shirt and slacks, pink tie, furry white gloves and dog collar and leash. Sadly, I can’t say the joke was robust enough to carry the production, but all the provocative questions posed by the play kept my attention from straying too far. Such as: Why was the lady dressed in modern French woman garb — complete with gigantic beret — in turn of the century Russia? How did the dog acquire the morals of a Victorian prude? What other stories could benefit from a similar treatment, say, \u003cb>Moby Dick\u003c/b> from the point of the view of the whale? What sort of ensemble would the whale wear to accurately represent his blowhole and powerful tail?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dystopian near-futures are all the rage these days, with manifestos and plotlines referencing 1984 popping up everywhere. \u003ca href=\"http://www.atmostheatre.com\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">AtmosTheatre\u003c/a>‘s\u003cb>The Pheasant\u003c/b> starts from the same source material and races off in the opposite direction, with a broad comedy about a celebrity chef planning a final protest on the eve of the closure of his restaurant in the face of a new government dictum: people can no longer eat freely, but will instead eat government-issued nutritional substances. The chef has decided that he will be cooking and serving himself in a grand gesture. The four characters — high-strung artiste Chef, his cold and arrogant wife Gloria, maudlin martyr sous chef Helen, and a government agent who is secretly a huge gourmand — are depressingly unoriginal. A plot that relies on a sadly absent shock value, grand speeches that sound all-too-familiar, and a thoroughly predictable plot all detract from the momentum of the production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I missed the innovative content I expect from Bay Area productions — none of these plays felt like they were breaking new ground — but this coming week promises a whole new lineup with entirely different material and productions. The \u003cb>Bay One Acts Festival\u003c/b> runs through Mar 4, 2007 at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco. For the \u003ca href=\"http://www.threewisemonkeys.org/boa6syn.html\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">lineup\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.threewisemonkeys.org\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets\u003c/a>, visit threewisemonkeys.org. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In 1991, I was thirteen and my angsty youth was picking up steam. I was busy learning from people like \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Rossetti\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Christina Rossetti\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gorey\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Edward Gorey\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000318/\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Tim Burton\u003c/a> that morbidity and whimsy often come hand in hand, and an obsession with death can be charming and fun. Of course, I was also wearing black leggings with whatever thick knit sweater in my closet was closest to black — electric blue as it turned out — and a very large, perm-like mane, restrained into the occasional side ponytail. While the monochromatic color scheme and Victorian references are absent, the leggings and hairstyles of the very early nineties are not, as trauma and death are offered up — with a healthy dose of cuteness — in Crowded Fire’s \u003cb>Big Death & Little Death\u003c/b>, which runs through March 4, 2007 at the Traveling Jewish Theatre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Author Mickey Birnbaum describes \u003cb>Big Death & Little Death\u003c/b> as “a head-banging tale of death-metal teens & pit bulls in the ceiling” on his blog, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dogear.org/blogs/birnbaumm/\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">It Is in the Brewing Luminous\u003c/a>. A finalist in the PEN USA 2006 Literary Awards for Drama, the play is set in the wake of the first Gulf War (Gulf War Sr.) and tells the tale of how two California teens cope with the travails of daily life while also dealing with their crazy parents — who in this case are actually crazy. It was conceived of as an opener to a death metal show, although I can only assume its origins were grittier in tone than the final result. Sure, there’s taboo sex, a wide variety of drugs, and a gun that becomes part of the central question answered before the play is over, but there are also plenty of scenes focused on laughs rather than tension, and a variety of amusingly awkward adolescent exchanges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its best, \u003cb>Big Death & Little Death\u003c/b> takes a conventional moment in the life of an American teen and infuses it with a surreal, insanity-tinged atmosphere. Out of a strong cast, Lawrence Radecker as the traumatized Desert Storm vet dad and Tonya Glanz as a bitter, broken guidance counselor who needs serious amounts of guidance herself are most consistent at injecting this sense of reasonable madness into their characters. At its most mediocre, the artificially rapid-fire dialogue and lightly veiled references to bulimia seem a little forced. The two teens who are the main focus of the play aren’t as edgy as their angsty characters should be — rarely inspiring a sense of tension about the big decision they face: whether to go to college out of state or destroy the universe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The short scenes with rapid transitions that make up the play were handled smoothly against the backdrop of the family home. The home, or specifically, its diamond-patterned wallpaper, immediately caught my attention as I sat down, with its intriguing flaps and their possibilities for being opened and moved and rearranged. However, the set design seemed to take inspiration more from the seventies than the nineties, a Desert Storm bumper sticker offering the only real indication of the time period, presumably to avoid any confusion about which Gulf War people were talking about. The costuming kept the audience in giggles, with stirrup pants for mom, an Esprit t-shirt and doc martens for daughter, and a truly horrifying ensemble of too tight, too new jeans, shiny patent leather boots with an alligator texture, leather bomber jacket, gold necklace and an improbable dirty blonde wig for a household visitor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, the big decision about whether to go to college out of state or destroy the universe is made, but I came away thinking more about the humor and sweetness in the script and production than the trauma and death in the subject matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Big Death & Little Death\u003c/b> runs through Mar 4, 2007 at the Traveling Jewish Theatre in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.crowdedfire.org\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>, visit crowdedfire.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"order": 1
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"order": 9
},
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Perspectives",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
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},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
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