From side-splitting stage comedies to a mandolin love story and a look at Ayesha Curry’s burgeoning acting career, there is a lot to see and do this weekend in the Bay Area. Here is a partial rundown.
Theater picks: ’39 Steps,’ hoop dreams, ‘Mean Girls’
Here are three productions Bay Area theater fans should know about.
Hitchcock on speed: Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic works are ripe for satire, and one of the most consistently amusing of these is getting a new production by San Francisco Playhouse. “The 39 Steps,” by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, with an award-winning 2005 revision by Patrick Barrow, has four actors playing some 100 characters in as it follows the high-speed adventures of protagonist Richard Hannay, who’s kept busy chasing bad folks through the U.K., cracking an international spy ring and, of course, getting the girl.
Details: Through April 20; SF Playhouse, 450 Post St.; $15-$125; www.sfplayhouse.org.
Hoop dreams: San Francisco native Lauren Yee’s basketball-and-politics play “The Great Leap” is back in the Bay Area for a staging by Center Repertory Company. The show is packed with themes and intersecting stories, as it follows a University of San Francisco men’s basketball team traveling to China to play an headline-making exhibition game. The tension jumps a notch when an incident in China draws international headlines, proving history has a way of encroaching on the present.
Details: Saturday through April 7; Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek; $42-$70; lesherartscenter.org.
“Mean Girls”: The 2004 film comedy directed by Mark Winters and written by “SNL” star and actor Tina Fey followed a endearingly nasty high school girls clique and starred such A-List young actors as Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried (Fey herself also appeared as a beleaguered march teacher). The film was adopted into a hit Broadway musical penned by Fey and Nell Benjamin, which earned a whopping 12 Tony Awards. Now a touring production is playing in San Jose beginning next week.
Details: Presented by Broadway San Jose; Tuesday through March 24; San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts; $40-$129 (subject to change); broadwaysanjose.com.
— Staff and Bay City News Foundation
Classical picks: Mitsuko Uchida, Sibelius, Poulenc Trio
Mark your calendars, classical fans – this week brings two events featuring pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Also of note: Sibelius at the Symphony, and the Poulenc Trio with special guest Shawnette Sulker.
Uchida times 2: The sublime pianist Mitsuko Uchida returns as Cal Performances’ Artist in Residence Sunday afternoon, joining tenor Mark Padmore in a performance of Schubert’s “Winterreise” in the intimate Hertz Hall. Next Sunday, she’ll appear as soloist with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a program featuring works by Mozart and the U.S. premiere of a chamber orchestra arrangement of Jörg Widmann’s String Quartet No. 2, “Choralquartett.”
Details: 3 p.m. Sunday at Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley; 3 p.m. March 24 at Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, $73-$210; calperformances.org.
Music of his homeland: San Francisco Symphony music director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts an all-Sibelius program this week, featuring the Finnish composer’s breakthrough composition, the Symphony No. 1, and his beloved “Finlandia.” Completing the program is Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, with special guest Lisa Batiashvili as soloist.
Details: 2 p.m. today, 7:30 Friday and Saturday; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; $25-$225; sfsymphony.org.
Cool at Kohl: Music@Kohl Mansion welcomes the Poulenc Trio with the world premiere of a new arrangement of songs by the group’s namesake, French composer Francis Poulenc, as well as works by Rossini, Viet Cuong, and Duke Ellington. The trio — Irina Kaplan Lande on piano, Aleh Remezau on oboe and Bryan Young on bassoon — will be joined by with soprano Shawnette Sulker.
Details: 7 p.m. Sunday; Kohl Mansion, Burlingame; $25-$58; musicatkohl.org, poulenctrio.org.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
Robert Moses takes on free speech
Bay Area contemporary dance troupe Robert Moses KIN launches its 29th season this week with a typically thought-provoking program that addresses the theme of censorship.
The program, “New Legacies: One Act Dances” serves up some very different works by Moses and three guest choreographers — Natasha Adorelee, Khala Brannigan and Robert S. Kelley II –- who all have deep Bay Area ties. The works will be set to widely varying musical styles (from “acapella to goth,” say organizers) but will all deliver what company artistic director Moses says is “a defiant response to the chilling effects of censorship,” whether it manifests itself in suppressive school curricula or outright banning of certain forms of expression. Says Moses: “Libraries crumble and rise again, their contents reshaped to serve the whims of power. This obliteration of stories is the obliteration of lives.” Moses and his company never fail to challenge dance fans with their provocative performances. This weekend promises more of the same from a true icon in the Bay Area arts community.
Details: 7:30 p.m. March 15-16, 2 p.m. March 17; Presidio Theatre, 99 Moraga Ave., San Francisco; $10-$45; www.robertmoseskin.org.
It’s all Greek for film fans
The spring movie season blossoms early in the Bay Area this weekend with, among other things, the 21st San Francisco Greek Film Festival, which is serving up another exceptional lineup with 41 films — eight narrative, nine documentaries and 24 shorts.
Of note is the opening-night feature “Behind the Haystacks.” Asminia Proedrou’s tragic family drama — her debut feature — failed to make the cut on this year’s Academy Awards international feature shortlist, but a case could be made that it belonged there. Told in three chapters and from the perspective of three family members, “Haystacks” is rich with drama, compelling story lines and plenty of tragedy. Proedrou’s gorgeous-to-look-at feature never offers false hope, but it doesn’t entirely end on a dour note. (It screens 6 p.m. Saturday and is available online).
Details: Saturday through March 24; in-person screenings and online viewings available; Delancey Screening Room, San Francisco; $15-$50; grfilm.com.
— Randy Myers, Bay City News Foundation
Lohan & Curry: besties in life and film
Who had Ayesha Curry being BFFs with Lindsay Lohan on their bingo card? Not us. But it turns out that Curry and Lohan are such good friends that the cookbook author, actor and TV personality and her NBA star husband agreed to be godparents to the “Mean Girls” star’s 7-month-old son, Luai, whom she shares with husband Bader Shammas.
Ayesha Curry and Lohan met in Dubai through celebrity chef Michael Mina, a friend of Shammas’, who had a hunch they would hit it off. “(Ayesha) happened to be coming to Dubai, and we met, and we just clicked, right off the bat,” Lohan told host Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show.”
And this week, Lohan and Ayesha Curry can be seen together in “Irish Wish,” Lohan’s second cheesy rom-com on Netflix. Lohan stars as a book editor who’s in love with a dashing lad who is about to get married, but a wish made on an ancient stone sets in play a magical turn of events that change everything. Ayesha Curry, who has said she wants to get into acting regularly, plays Heather, one of Lohan’s circle of pals in town for the wedding.
Details: Available Friday on Netflix.
— Martha Ross and Randy McMullen, Staff
Take in some sensational strings
Sensational strings: Two world-class string players, mandolinists Caterina Lichtenberg and Mike Marshall are teaming up with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra this Sunday to perform the world premiere of a new double concerto for their instruments, which we’ll hazard a guess composer Evan Price has titled it in their honor, as it is called “A Game of Cat and Mike.” Price, a mean string player in his own right, is a 10-year veteran of the Turtle Island String Quartet and the music director of the Space Orchestra and a composer with a long list of contributions to various Bay Area ensembles. Also on the program, which will be conducted by Baarbara Day Turner, are a wind quartet by composer and San Francisco Symphony music director Esa-Pekka Salonen called “Memoria” and music by the late Irish composer Joan Trimble.
Details: 7 p.m.; St. Francis Episcopal Church in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood; $15-$75; sjco.org
— Bay City News Foundation
Serenades and more
There will be some lovely lush strains and some banging sounds in this weekend’s eclectic lineup that music director Donato Cabrera has programmed for his two California Symphony concerts at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek, specifically designed to showcase the woodwinds, brass and percussion. First up is the Serenade that composer Richard Strauss produced at the tender age of 17, inspired by his father’s horn playing. Following it, concertmaster Jennifer Cho, backed up by five percussionists, will perform Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra, which will keep her compatriots busily occupied on a variety of recognizable and totally unique instruments, including washtubs, flower pots, gongs, congas and coffee cans. (And the composer also called for a double bass to be laid on its back and struck with sticks!) Things will calm down a bit for the closing work from Mozart, his “Gran Partita” Wind Serenade, a seven-movement masterpiece filled with effervescent rhythms and beautiful melodies.
Details: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday; $20-$90; californiasymphony.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
