...is it possible to walk down the street swinging a yoga mat and be accosted by a homeless person pushing a Safeway cart in grimy clothes who says: "Pilates?" by way of introduction."No, yoga," I said to the man, smiling. I gave him a dollar. Then we went our separate ways. … [Read more...]

San Francisco is probably the most sexually tolerant city in the world. There are few places where people can walk around in nothing but socks and sneakers with bells dangling from their privates without getting arrested and San Francisco is one of them. Ironically, the fact that the city is so gay-friendly makes the latest work by the luminescent British physical theatre company DV8 so disturbing: It's eye-opening in this lovely, uber-liberal, open-minded bubble we live in to be reminded of just how much anti-gay sentiment still persists in … [Read more...]

Here's a list of qualities that British theatre productions seem to think they need to possess in order to "succeed" in the U.S. market:1. A cast of actors, most of them speaking in middle-class Home Counties accents with just one or two "regional"-accented actors (e.g. a token Welshie or Scouser) thrown in for color.2. Period costumes.3. Live music, preferably played on period instruments.4. Live animals on stage or beautifully-constructed puppets.5. A bare-bones approach to scenery (it's all about the actors after all).6. Shakespeare (or … [Read more...]

There's something to be said for the fact that retreat centres try to get the people who visit them to unplug for the duration of their stay. That's the whole point of going on a retreat -- to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. But following an experience I had during a recent visit to the Esalen Institute at Big Sur, I'm wondering whether this attitude can go too far.I was sitting quietly in the dining room eating lunch while reading a book when one of the staff members at the Institute rudely came over and told me to put my … [Read more...]

"I've Got Nothing", the crowd-pleasing, "crowd-sourced" song created by the YouTube community under the auspices of four British teens, demonstrates just how easy it is to mobilize large numbers of people to create the kind of pop music product for free (well, for nothing but sweat equity) that was traditionally produced by a handful of professionals in a proper studio and with a sizable budget.According to the BBC Chartjackers website (through which the project is being developed) the song came into being through the following process:"The … [Read more...]

Arts organizations try many different tactics to get young people through their doors, from offering low-cost tickets and organizing party nights with DJs to doing in-schools programs and partnering with other organizations that are more closely tapped into youth culture like capoeira clubs and skateboarding stores.SF Playhouse has come up with what seems to me like a particularly straightforward way of inspiring the next generation of theatre goers. The company's new "Rising Stars" program provides sophomores and juniors from five different … [Read more...]

Three Bay Area-based dramatists had the following to say in response to this question:Trevor Allen: "I don't chose to direct my own work anymore. I have been very fortunate to have been able to work with some amazing directors who "get" my weird plays (Kent Nicholson, Rob Melrose etc.) However, I also don't think there should be an immediate negative reaction to a playwright directing their own work. As long as they know what they are doing--directing a play that they happen to have written and not rewriting their play while trying to … [Read more...]

Finessing a sudden change in mood from comedy to tragedy and visa versa in the theatre is a challenging feat. I was reminded of this fact last night at a performance of Dominic Dromgoole's Globe Theatre production of Loves Labours Lost at Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley. The production is currently being presented under the auspices of Cal Performances as part of The Globe's current US tour. Shakespeare's sophomoric 1598 comedy of love and wordplay has one of the trickiest temperature shifts in the dramatic cannon, when, in the final part … [Read more...]

When headliner Nadja Michael (pictured) became "indisposed" last Friday for that evening's performance of Strauss' Salome at San Francisco Opera, stand-in soprano Molly Fillmore was flown in from Arizona at the last minute and hustled on stage.Considering the fact that Fillmore, who is performing the role at Arizona Opera this month, had very little rehearsal time, she did a serviceable job, though the orchestra was too loud and it was quite often difficult to hear the soprano's voice especially in the higher part of her register.If only … [Read more...]

Andrew Taylor's latest blogpost at ArtsJournal about "portfolio careers" in the arts got me thinking this morning about whether anything has really changed in the way that many people in the arts make a living, despite the terminology.I first heard the term "portfolio career" applied to arts workers around 10 years ago when a management consultant friend of mine in London said to me, "it's pretty cool, you're portfolio lifestyle. I want one of those." At the time, I wasn't quite sure what he was getting at. I didn't consider my weird mixture of … [Read more...]