detail of a stained glass window at Saint Matthew's Lutheran Church in San Francisco
30 May 2025
26 May 2025
Another Opening, Another Show: June 2025
If you're reading this, you have undoubtedly bought performance tickets from one to dozens of organizations in the past, which means you will receive frequent emails from one to dozens of performance groups, no matter how long ago you bought from them, & so you have probably heard already that the NEA, guided by the current Republican administration's usual unholy trinity of cruelty, incompetence, & smug stupidity, has slashed grant money (including money already promised for works already underway) to most arts groups. If you can afford to donate – well, you know what to do. And at this point, buying tickets is not just entertainment or self-enrichment or whatever live performance provides to you: it is a vital way of supporting the arts & fighting back against the fascists. So pick your battles from the enticing list below:
Theatrical
From 17 to 22 June, Berkeley Rep hosts Who’s With Me?, written & performed by W Kamau Bell; this revival of his show is a special benefit series of performances to help Bay Area arts organizations hit by the recent NEA fund pull-backs & cuts, including the American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Crowded Fire Theater, Dance Brigade/Dancers Mission Theater, Magic Theatre, Marin Shakespeare Company, New Conservatory Theatre Center, Oakland Children’s Fairyland, Oakland Theater Project, San Francisco Youth Theatre, Theatre Bay Area, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, & Zaccho Dance Theatre.
For three weekends in June, the New Conservatory Theatre Center, in association with Martuni’s, presents three different Pride Cabarets: on 6 - 7 June, it's How I Became the Countess, with J Conrad Frank accompanied by Russell Deason; on 13 - 14 June, it's Dusty Pörn, with pianist Joe Wicht, in These Pumps Are Made for Walkin’; & on 20 - 21 June, it's Cantos De Mi Tierra in ORGULLO!, "honoring Spanish-speaking LGBTQ+ icons".
Kunoichi Productions in association with Theater of Yugen presents Pacific Overtures, the Sondheim musical about the opening of Japan to the Western powers, directed by Nick Ishimaru, from 30 May to 15 June at La Brava Theater.
Ray of Light presents Next to Normal, the musical by Tom Kitt (music) & Brian Yorkey (book & lyrics), from 30 May to 21 June at the Victoria Theater in San Francisco.
Theater Rhinoceros presents Doodler, a true-crime story from the 1970s about a series of unsolved murders of gay men in the Castro, a one-person show with John Fisher as everything, including running lights & sound & selling concessions; the show will be at The Marsh San Francisco, rather than Theater Rhinoceros, & runs from 31 May to 6 July.
ACT presents a "World Premiere Hip-Hop Musical", Co-Founders, by Ryan Nicole Austin, Beau Lewis, & Adesha Adefela, with a music team led by Victoria Theodore, directed by Jamil Jude, from 29 May through 6 July at the Strand.
Berkeley Rep presents The Big Reveal Live Show!, written & performed by Sasha Velour, from 4 to 15 June.
On 7 - 8 June at the Potrero Stage, Golden Thread Productions presents, as part of their New Threads Staged Reading Series, Oriental, or 1001 Ways to Tie Yourself in Knots by Evren Odcikin, directed by Elizabeth Carter.
Before I Forget, written & performed by Adam Strauss, plays at The Marsh Berkeley from 7 to 21 June.
From 12 to 22 June, the Great Star Theater in San Francisco's Chinatown presents Au Room by Pink Puma, & when you recall that "Au" is the elemental abbreviation for gold, you will be prepared for a shimmering, gold-covered aerialist cabaret.
David Henry Hwang's Yellowface continues at Shotgun Players until 14 June, but on 9 - 10 June their Champagne Staged Reading Series presents A Black-Billed Cuckoo by Mat Smart, directed by Mary Ann Rdogers, & on 19 June they present the San-Francisco Neo-Futurists in Blackest Wrench, "a one-night-only Juneteenth edition of The Infinite Wrench! Featuring an all-Black cast".
BARD Theater presents Coriolanus, featuring "the political subterfuge and brutality of Ancient Rome by way of 2012 American politics, complete with an emo soundtrack, homoerotic frenemies, and the mother of all toxic boy-moms…" from 13 to 28 June at the Eclectic Box Theater in San Francisco.
Word for Word and Z Space present Lauren Groff's Annunciation, directed by Joel Mullennix, from 18 June through 13 July; on 9 July only, there will be an author's talkback after the show with Lauren Groff.
The Magic Theater presents the world premiere of Aztlán by Luis Alfaro, directed By Kinan Valdez, a "contemporary California story about the search for the resonance of the cultural, mythical, and political remnants of Aztlán in our modern world", & that runs from 25 June to 13 July.
Talking
City Arts & Lectures presents Michael Pollan & Gül Dölen, in conversation with Indre Viskontas, on the Future of Psychedelics (Co-produced with the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics), & that's 5 June at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco.
Operatic
Opera Parallèle presents a revised version of Harvey Milk, the opera by Stewart Wallace (music) & Michael Korie (words), from 31 May to 7 June at the Yerba Buena Center.
Urs Leonhardt Steiner leads the Golden Gate Symphony & Chorus in a selection of arias & choruses from popular operas, & that's on 7 June at the Clock Tower in Benicia & 8 June at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
San Francisco Opera presents a double-cast run of Puccini's ever popular La Bohème, conducted by Ramón Tebar: on 3, 7, 10, 12, 15, & 19 June, Rodolfo is Pene Pati, Mimì is Karen Chia-Ling Ho, Marcello is Lucas Meachem, & Musetta is Andrea Carroll; on 13, 18, & 21 June, Rodolfo is Evan LeRoy Johnson, Mimì is Nicole Car, Marcello is Will Liverman, & Musetta is Brittany Renee. (The Opera is also presenting a free touring abridgement of this opera, Bohème Out of the Box; check here for dates & locations.)
San Francisco Opera presents Mozart's Idomeneo on 14, 17, 20, 22, & 25 March, conducted by Eun Sun Kim & directed by Lindy Hume, featuring Matthew Polenzani in the title role, Daniela Mack as Idamante, Ying Fang as Ilia, Elza van den Heever as Elettra, & Alek Shrader as Arbace.
Pocket Opera presents Kirke Mecham's operatic version of Molière's Tartuffe, with music direction by Kyle Naig & stage direction by Nicolas A Garcia, on 15 June at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, 22 June at the Gunn Theater at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, & 29 June at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.
Festival Opera presents Pagliacci in the Park, a free outdoor version of Leoncavallo's opera, on 26 June at Orinda Community Park & on 29 June at Civic Park in Walnut Creek.
On 7 June at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, the Wagner Society of Northern California presents The Quest for the Grail: Parsifal by the Bay with Kip Cranna.
Cole Thomason-Redus of the San Francisco Opera will give a lecture on Black Voices in American Opera on 7 & 14 June; the lecture on the 7th is at the Ocean View Branch of the SF Public Library & the one on the 14th is at the Potrero Branch.
Choral
Robert Geary leads Volti in The Guardians of Yggdrasil, a new work by Mark Winges based on Norse mythology (with a libretto by Lisa Delan), as well as Caroline Shaw‘s Ochre, on 6 - 8 June at Z Space in San Francisco.
On 7 June at Calvary Presbyterian, the San Francisco Boys Chorus, joined by special guests from Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble, will present Build Me A World, a program featuring works by Vivaldi, Mozart, Duruflé, & others, along with traditional folk tunes.
Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble offers an "evening of Balkan, Baltic, Slavic, and Caucasian songs for the Summer Solstice" at Old First Concerts on 14 June.
San Francisco Choral Artists present Welcome to the Zoo!, a survey of animal-centered works from the Renaissance up to world premieres (by Bryce McCandless, Zoe Yost, & Patricia Julien), & the performances are 8 June at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, 14 June at All Saints' Episcopal in Palo Alto, & 15 June at Saint Paul's Episcopal in Oakland.
Chanticleer presents Chanticleer and the Fox: An Evening of Renaissance Theater Music, based on the children's book Chanticleer and the Fox, illustrated by Barbara Cooney; for this family-friendly program, the group offers free admission for children 12 & under (children must be accompanied by a ticketed adult); you can hear the performance on 7 June (two performances) at Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco, 8 June at Saint John's Lutheran in Sacramento, 10 June at Mission Santa Clara, 12 June at Mount Tamalpais United Methodist, & 13 June at First Church in Berkeley.
Slavyanka Chorus, led by Irina Shachneva, performs Songs of the Soul, featuring spiritual music of Russia from the 17th century to our own time, with performances on 14 June at the Church of the Redeemer in Los Altos & 15 June at Star of the Sea in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus presents a Pride Concert at the Curran Theater on 21 June.
Vocalists
Randy Rainbow brings his National Freakin’ Treasure tour to the Palace of Fine Arts Theater on 5 June, & if you don't know his anti-Trump parody videos, do yourself a favor & go to YouTube to check them out.
On 14 June, the Berkeley Hillside Club presents vocalist Sarah Cabral performing Música do Brasil, accompanied by Ian Faquini (acoustic guitar), Eva Scow (mandolin), & Alex Calatayud (percussion).
Merola presents A Grand Night for Singing – An American Songfest on 26 June at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, featuring the Merolini in a celebration of American song chosen by Ronny Michael Greenberg.
San Francisco Opera presents a Pride Concert, conducted by Eun Sun Kim & Robert Mollicone, with videos by Tal Rosner, hosted by Monét X Change & featuring vocalists Jamie Barton, Brian Mulligan, & Nikola Printz, at the Opera House on 27 June.
Orchestral
On 1 June in Zellerbach Hall, Joseph Young leads the Berkeley Symphony in Methuselah (In Chains of Time) by Gity Razaz, Piazzolla's Aconcagua, Concerto for Bandoneon, String Orchestra and Percussion (featuring accordion soloist Hanzhi Wang), & the Shostakovich 5.
On 8 June at Herbst Theater, the San Francisco Pride Band presents . . . On A High Note: The Pete Nowlen Farewell Concert; to mark the retirement of Newlen, the Band's longtime Artistic Director, he will conduct the world premiere of American Epic (commissioned from composer Carlos McMillan Fuentes under the Band’s Black, Indigenous, Person of Color (BIPOC) Composition Program), along with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (with Fuentes as piano soloist), as well as Chamak by Reena Esmail, To a Liberator by George Fredrick McKay, Tundra by Nubia Jaime-Donjuan (conducted by Mike Wong), & Monkey Business by David Lovrien.
On 13 June at the Paramount, Kedrick Armstrong leads the Oakland Symphony in Errollyn Wallen's Mighty River along with the Beethoven 9, the Choral, with soloists Hope Briggs (soprano), Zoie Reams (mezzo-soprano), Ashley Faatoalia (tenor), & Adam Lau (bass).
On 14 June at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Martha Stoddard leads the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony in the American premiere of Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra by Juan Sebastian Cardona-Ospina (with timpani soloist Jimmy Chan), Overture by Grażyna Bacewicz, What the Wildflowers Tell Me by Mahler (arranged by Britten), & the Sibelius 3.
The Verdi Requiem that San Francisco Symphony management sabotaged last fall is making an appearance in the closing weeks of the season, on 20 & 22 June, this time led by James Gaffigan, with vocal soloists Rachel Willis-Sørensen (soprano), Jamie Barton (mezzo-soprano), Mario Chang (tenor), & Morris Robinson (bass), joined by the Symphony Chorus, led by Jenny Wong; in addition to the Verdi, the program includes Mozart's Ave verum corpus, & Gordon Getty's Intermezzo from Goodbye, Mr. Chips, his Saint Christopher, & his The Old Man in the Snow.
Owing to the boneheaded myopia of the San Francisco Symphony's current mismanagers, Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen is leading his final performances with the ensemble this month: on 6 - 8 June, he conducts the world premiere of an SFS commission, Rewilding by Gabriella Smith, along with Richard Strauss's Don Juan, his Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, & the Sibelius 7; on 12 - 14 June, he leads the Mahler 2, the Resurrection (a choice, under current circumstances, both ironic & hopeful), with soloists Heidi Stober (soprano) & Sasha Cooke (mezzo-soprano), along with the Symphony Chorus, led by Jenny Wong.
On 26 & 27 June, the San Francisco Symphony joins with something called BLACKSTAR Symphony to perform a symphonic re-imagining of David Bowie's final album, Blackstar. I like Bowie so I'm listing this, but generally I feel pop music doesn't really need the lush amplification of a symphony orchestra & I wish Orchestras would devote their "new/unusual music" energies towards new scores written specifically for them, not in pumping up pop works that don't need the upholstery. (Yes, I am well aware that many of the staple Symphonic composers used the folk & popular music of their time, but that's exactly it: they used such music, adapting & changing it to suit their purposes; they didn't just flesh it out, full-length, with unnecessary sonorities in order to lure in ticket-buyers who otherwise would never go near Symphony Hall.)
Chamber Music
On 8 June, the Berkeley Hillside Club Concert Series presents An Afternoon of Music & Words, with the words provided by Martha Anne Toll, from her book Duet for One, & the music by Gwendolyn Mok (piano), Ariel Pawlik-Zwiebel (violin), Markus Pawlik (piano), & Omri Shimron (piano); remarks & readings by Toll will be interspersed with performances of Franck's Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano (third movemen), Vocalise by Rachmaninoff, Bach's French Suite #2 in C Minor (second & third movements, Courante & Sarabande), & the Brahms Sonata for Two Pianos in F Minor, Opus 34b (first movement).
On 15 June at Davies Hall, a chamber group of San Francisco Symphony musicians will perform Caroline Shaw's Entr’acte, Anton Arensky's Cello Quartet, Aleksey Igudesman's Latin Suite for Two Violas, & the String Quartet #3 in B-flat Major, Opus 67 by Brahms.
On 22 June at Old First Concerts, Le Due Muse (Sarah Hong, cello; Makiko Ooka, piano), with special guest violinist Fumino Ando, will perform Nikolai Myaskovsky's Sonata for Cello and Piano, #1, Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Cello and Piano, & Anton Arensky's Piano Trio.
On 28 - 29 June at Old First Concerts, Sixth Station Trio (Anju Goto, violin; Federico Strand Ramirez, cello; Katelyn Tan, piano) will perform music from the video game Stardew Valley.
Instrumental
On 1 June at Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony presents cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason & pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason performing Mendelssohn's Cello Sonata #1 in B-flat major, Fauré's Cello Sonata #1 in D minor, Poulenc's Cello Sonata, & Natalie Klouda's Tor Mordôn.
On 4 June at Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony presents double-bass player Xavier Foley, performing Bach's Suite #5 for Solo Cello (as arranged for bass), along with a series of his own compositions.
Noontime Concerts at Old Saint Mary's presents two piano recitals this month: on 17 June Sharon Su performs Chopin's Berceuse, Opus 57, Maria Szymanowska's Nocturne in B-flat Major, Mel Bonis's Omphale, Opus 68, Ravel's Jeux d’eau, & Florence Price's Fantasie nègre #1 in E minor; & on 24 June, Jason Sia performs an as-yet unannounced program.
Early / Baroque Music
On 3 June at Old Saint Mary's, Noontime Concerts presents Musica Pacifica (Judith Lisenberg, recorder; William Skeen, cellist, Yuko Tanaka, keyboard) performing chamber works by Bach & Buxtehude.
WAVE (Women's Antique Vocal Ensemble) performs a 25th Anniversary Concert, Celebrating the Past, Looking to the Future, on 6 June at Saint Mary Magdalen in Berkeley, when they will perform "some of our favorite music from 25 years of concerts — gorgeous medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque songs from Europe, England, and Latin America — plus some wonderful music new to us".
The San Francisco Early Music Society presents Emperor of the Moon, a collaboration between Nash Baroque Ensemble & Dance Through Time, offering a "pastiche of music, dance, pantomime and puppetry from the 17th and 18th-century English stage", & you can see it 6 June at Carrington Hall in Redwood City, 7 June at the Live Oak Theater in Berkeley, & 8 June at the Gunn Theater in the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.
The Handel Opera Project presents Handel's Samson on 15 June at the First Church of Christ, Scientist (the Maybeck Church) in Berkeley; the cast features Gabriel Liboiron-Cohen as Samson, Daphne Touchais as Dalila, Sara Couden as Micah, Wayne Wong as Manoah, Michael Orlinsky as Harapha, & Shannon Arcilla, Jayne Diliberto, & Caleb Alexander as assorted Philistines.
Modern / Contemporary Music
The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble presents Spring Contrasts, a program exploring the "contrasting timbres of the violin [Liana Bérubé], clarinet [Jeff Anderle], and piano [Allegra Chapman]", featuring the Suite en Trio, Opus 59 by Mel Bonis, Processional by Hannah Kendall, Unquiet Waters by Kevin Day, selections from Cinco Bocetos: Canción de la Montaña & Canción del Campo by Roberto Sierra, the first movement of the Sonata for Violin and Piano by Roberto Sierra, & Contrasts by Bartók, & you can hear it all on 7 June at the Piedmont Center for the Arts & on 9 June at the Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players & the ARTZenter Institute continue their collaboration this month, with two concerts (both at Herbst Theater in San Francisco, & both free), one on 18 June featuring Luca Robadey's Stained Glass, Laura Cetilia's Unless, & Daniel Cui's Nanjing Fragments & one on 20 June featuring Gabriel Duarte's Färgstark, Sofia Jen Ouyang's Burst, & Angel Gomez's Synecdoche; if I'm understanding correctly, & I may not be, these are the pieces selected after the first round of concerts.
Garden of Memory, New Music Bay Area's annual & much loved celebration of the Summer Solstice, will take place at Chapel of the Chimes on 21 June; tickets are only available in advance, & as attendance is limited they're gone well in advance, so buy now if you're interested in going.
Jazz
On 8 June at the Presidio Theater, the Marcus Shelby Orchestra will perform Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues, Shelby's celebration of "the history and legacy of Black baseball through songs, video, theatrics, singers, dancers, and clowns."
The San Francisco Jazz Festival runs 13 - 15 June; check here for the line-up.
Art Means Painting
Bouquets to Art, the popular exhibition of plants arranged to reflect the surrounding art, runs 3 to 8 June at the de Young & the Legion of Honor.
Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California, tracing "the flow and flourishing of quilts in the context of the Second Great Migration" opens at BAM/PFA on 8 June & runs through 30 November; this is sure to be one not to miss!
On 14 June at BAM/PFA, Yasufumi Nakamori will lecture on Martin Wong and Premodern Art of Asia (the museum's 2017 exhibit Martin Wong: Human Instamatic was a highlight of their recent exhibition history).
Cinematic
The 22nd SF Documentary Film Festival (SF DocFest), with 39 features & 47 shorts, will run, mostly at the Roxie, from 1 to 11 June; check here for the full schedule.
BAM/PFA begins its summer series of films this month: In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City. inspired by the book of the same title by Imogen Sara Smith, "focuses on film noirs set in suburbia and small towns, on the road, in the desert, and along borderlands" & that launches 6 June & runs through 24 July; the self-explanatory Robert Altman at 100, featuring a nice selection of acknowledged classics (Nashville) & lesser-known gems (Popeye), opens 13 June & goes through 30 August; Bruce Conner: Films from the BAMPFA Collection will feature two different programs of Conner's experimental / collage films, on 15 & 27 June; Andrei Tarkovsky: Voyages in Time opens 20 June & runs through 29 August (I had always thought of myself as a Tarkovsky lover, & then one day I decided to check how many of his films I had actually seen, & I realized that what I am is a devout lover of Andrei Rublev with a lot of catching up to do).
It's not as difficult to see as it was before Criterion released its edition, but if you want to see Jacques Rivette's marvelous Céline and Julie Go Boating on a big screen, you may do so at the Balboa in San Francisco on 9 June.
The 21st International Queer Women of Color Film Festival (presented by Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project), featuring 49 films across 7 screenings, runs at the Presidio Theater from 13 to 15 June.
Frameline, the LGBTQ+ film festival, runs 18 to 28 June; check here for films & locations.
Museum Monday 2025/21
Hercules Slaying the Lernaean Hydra, a silver sculpture by the Circle of Antico, now at the Legion of Honor
23 May 2025
19 May 2025
Museum Monday 2025/20
detail of Krazy Kat [Beauty Salon] by George Herriman. seem as part of the special exhibit Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art at the Legion of Honor
Thiebaud designed sets for a Krazy Kat ballet; this cartoon was part of his personal collection
16 May 2025
Friday Photo 2025/20
from a flowering tree in Lincoln Park, San Francisco
we're nearing the end of the season for flowering trees. . . .
12 May 2025
09 May 2025
05 May 2025
Museum Monday 2025/18
detail of Untitled (Gingko Leaves on Three Branches) by Ruth Asawa, seen as part of Ruth Asawa: Retrospective at SFMOMA
02 May 2025
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