There are many reasons why I’m excited to be sticking around the Bay Area this Summer, culture-wise. Here are just a few of them…
1. American Bach Soloists’ SummerFest — what lovelier way to spend a summer evening than munching a gourmet picnic supper serenaded by some of the country’s finest early music specialists?
2. Thrillpeddlers’ Theatre of the Ridiculous Festival — San Francisco’s own Grand Guignol stage company presents a weird and wonderful program of theatrical campery featuring Charles Busch’s Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium and Charles Ludlam’s Jack and the Beanstalk.
3. Asian Art Museum’s Ming Dynasty Exhibition — Not the place to go charging about like a bull in a china shop.
4. San Francisco Theater Festival — this event seems to get bigger and bigger and more and more inventive with each passing year.
5. Lucia di Lammermoor at the Ball Park — can’t wait to experience SF Opera’s production on a massive screen while eating hotdogs and drinking beer.
6. San Francisco Renaissance Voices staging of Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum — I’m currently wrapping my head around Hildegard’s germanized Latin plainchant text in order to play “The Soul” in this astounding 12th century work.