By Lina Broydo
April 2024 Concerts Enrich the San Francisco Symphony’s Repertoire at Davies Symphony Hall
April 2 at 7:30pm
Longtime friends, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott join forces for a spectrum of music across the ages.
April 7 at 7:30pm
Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields return to Davies Symphony Hall for a program of favorites, plus a jazz-inspired commission marking the centenary of Academy founder Sir Neville Marriner.
April 14 at 7:30pm
Patti LaPone – A Life in Notes
April 21 at 7:30pm
Recital by the brilliant pianist Yefim Bronfman
Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Frédéric Chopin
Information: sfsymphony.org
East-meets-West Comedy “Tiger Style!”
April 6 through April 28, 2024
Tiger Style! has performed at leading theaters across the country. And this spring TheatreWorks Silicon Valley is staging the hilarious East-meets-West comedy Tiger Style! In Mountain View.
This razor-sharp satire examines the cause and effects of strict “tiger” parenting, as 30-something Ivy League graduate siblings Albert and Jennifer wallow in their adult dissatisfaction with life despite their childhood ultra-achievements. When their lives fall apart, they blame their parents and run away from California to China on an “Asian Freedom Tour” where calamity ensues. Sounds familiar? Know people like this? I do… Written by Guggenheim Fellow Mike Lew (Teenage Dick), luckily Tiger Style! found its way to Silicon Valley.
Seen together in TheatreWorks’ The Language Archive, Obie Award winner Francis Jue (Soft Power, Yellow Face, M. Butterfly) and “Gilmore Girls” actor/theatre mainstay Emily Kuroda return to TheatreWorks as the siblings’ parents, joined by Jenny Nguyen Nelson, Will Dao, and Jeremy Kahn. Written by Guggenheim Fellow Mike Lew (Teenage Dick), Tiger Style!
Information
theatreworks.org
Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts
500 Castro Street in Mountain View
Photos courtesy of the TheatreWorks
SF Jazz and Opera Parallele Present “BIRDS & BALLS”
April 5 through April 7, 2024
You’ll have it all: Opera, Tennis, Bird-Watching, Howard Cosell & “The Battle of the Sexes” as you attend the “Birds & Balls” show at the SF Jazz Center. Bringing together two seemingly disparate, but perfectly paired operas to create an entertaining evening in the theater, Birds & Balls combines David T. Little and Royce Vavrek’s 2010 opera, Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera.
Trained finches race to sing the most “susk-e-wiets” over the course of an hour. As they compete, the joys, sorrows, delusions, and all-too-stark realities of their trainers are revealed. Some of the trainers are noble, some not. Some play fair, some don’t. Balls is a multimedia opera dramatizing the famed September 20, 1973, tennis game between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
The match, dubbed “The Battle of the Sexes,” changed not only the perception and treatment of women in sports, but significantly advanced the women’s rights movement. The opera features a live tennis match as a central narrative device, along with actual commentary from the 1973 broadcast. Balls also incorporates electronic sampling entwined in the score, and some creative time hopping, so key figures such as Larry King and Howard Cosell are joined by American Suffragette Susan B. Anthony. Don’t miss this show even if you are not a tennis player. Fun galore awaits you, for sure! .
Information
sfjazz.org
SF Jazz Center
201 Franklin Street in San Francisco
Art work courtesy of SF Jazz
HAIRSPRAY Musical Comedy Will Make You Laugh In San Francisco
April 16 – 21 at the Orpheum Theatre
You Can’t Stop the Beat! Don’t miss this “exhilaratingly funny and warm-hearted musical comedy” (The New Yorker). HAIRSPRAY, Broadway’s Tony Award-winning musical comedy phenomenon is back on tour with a stop over in San Francisco! Join 16-year-old Tracy Turnblad in 1960s Baltimore as she sets out to dance her way onto TV’s most popular show.
Can a girl with big dreams (and even bigger hair) change the world? Only the attendees of this show will know for sure. Featuring the beloved score of hit songs including “Welcome to the ‘60s,” “Good Morning Baltimore” and “You Can’t Stop the Beat,”
HAIRSPRAY is “fresh, winning, and deliriously tuneful!” (The New York Times). The all-new touring production reunites Broadway’s award-winning creative team led by Director Jack O’Brien and Choreographer Jerry Mitchell to bring HAIRSPRAY to a new generation of theater audiences. And that’s you and me, I hope.
AGES & ADVISORIES: Recommended for ages 8+. No children under 5 allowed.
Information
tickets@broadwaysf.com
Orpheum Theatre
1192 Market Street in San Francisco
Photo courtesy of Broadway SF
