July is typically a slow month for performances, but this July seems particularly slow, not that there isn't more than enough listed below to take you out of your residence & yourself for an evening or two. I'll take this opportunity to reiterate that this list is, to use a recently overused word, curated; basically, something needs to be something I could or would, given world enough & time, go to experience. This means certain things don't get listed: anything too rock/rap/pop oriented, anything too electronica, anything that promises us a DJ (a promise meaning there will be bad music played much too loudly). We need more space in this culture for the obscure, the recondite, the artsy, the offbeat, the niche, the so-called unpopular. Go & seek these things out!
There are some terrific on-going things not listed below, as they started in earlier months: the Ruth Asawa exhibit at SFMOMA, the Wayne Thiebaud exhibit at the Legion of Honor, & the African-American Quilt show at BAM/PFA are three that are worth visiting & re-visiting.
And best wishes to all of us as we try to get through the worst of all holidays, the Fourth of July. Explosions. Fire danger. Patriotism. How toxic, & how typically American that the day features that most disgusting & even immoral of competitions, the eating contest. Thank God & hops for beer, which might help us float through to August, which promises to be more exciting (which is a way of saying it promises to be more promising).
Theatrical
San Francisco Playhouse presents My Fair Lady, opening 3 July & running through 13 September.
The SF Mime Troupe presents Disruption: A Musical Farce at various outdoor venues from 4 July to 3 August; check here for specific locations & dates.
Actors Ensemble of Berkeley presents Cymbeline, directed by Glenn Havlan & Gaby Schneider, from 4 to 20 July at the John Hinkel Park Amphitheater.
New Conservatory Theater Center brings back its production of the musical Ride the Cyclone, with book, music, & lyrics by Jacob Richmond & Brooke Maxwell, directed & choreographed by Stephanie Temple, with musical direction by Ben Prince, from 11 July to 15 August.
The Oakland Theater Project presents Lorraine Hansberry's final play, Les Blancs, adapted by Robert Nemiroff & directed by James Mercer II, from 11 to 27 July.
Aurora Theater presents Jane Wagner's one-person show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, directed by Jennifer King, with Marga Gomez in the role originated by Lily Tomlin, & that runs from 12 July to 10 August.
At the Marsh San Francisco, Koorosh Ostowari’s Grandma’s Million-Dollar Scheme: A Comedy-Drama written & performed by Ostowari (directed by David Ford), a one-person show about a mostly true encounter between his younger get-rich-quick-in-real-estate self & a scheming grandmother, plays Saturdays starting on 12 July through 23 August; also at the Marsh San Francisco, Pearl Ong’s Night Driver, written & performed by Ong (& also directed by David Ford), asking the question "What’s a Hong Kong princess doing driving a cab in San Francisco? And what does her very proper mother make of it?", also plays Saturdays (at an earlier time from Ostowari's show), starting 19 July through 23 August.
Shotgun Players presents The Magnolia Ballet by Terry Guest, directed by AeJay Antonis Marquis, a poetic look at four Black men in the American South, from 12 July to 10 August.
The Marsh Berkeley presents Candace Johnson’s Scat-ter Brain: The Music of ADHD, written & performed by Johnson, a one-person semi-autobiographical musical about receiving a diagnosis of ADHD as a 40+ adult; the show starts 19 July & runs on Saturdays through 13 September (no show on 30 August).
The San Leandro Players present Agatha Christie's The Hollow, directed by Amy Cook, from 19 July through 17 August.
Garrison Keillor Tonight, a one-person show featuring the writer & radio host, will take place at the Presidio Theater on 20 July (despite the title, the show is actually a matinee)..
Operatic
Pocket Opera presents its version of Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne, with music direction by Paul Schrage & stage direction by Phil Lowery, on 13 July at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, 20 July at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, & 27 July at the Gunn Theater in the Legion of Honor, San Francisco.
Vocalists
San Francisco Opera's Merola Program presents the Schwabacher Summer Concert: It’s Complicated – Love & Opera, conducted by William Long & directed by Omer Ben Seadia & Elio Bucky, featuring the Merolini in extended scenes from operas by Donizetti, Puccini, & Gounod, & that's 10 & 12 July at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
On 27 July at the Piedmont Center for the Arts, Festival Opera's Salon Series presents Baroque Queens, a program featuring mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz, with Joshua Mikus-Mahoney on cello, Jon Mendle on theorbo & baroque guitar, & Zachary Gordin on harpsichord, sizzling through an array of "legendary heroines, sorceresses, and queens from the past".
Orchestral
Stephanie Childress leads the San Francisco Symphony in what they're calling a Tchaikovsky Spectacular, featuring selection from Sleeping Beauty, the Violin Concerto (with soloist Blake Pouliot), the Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture, & the 1812 Overture, & that's 10 July at the Frost Amphitheater at Stanford & 11 July at Davies Hall.
On 12 - 13 July, Sunny Xia leads TwoSet Violin (Brett Yang & Eddy Chen) along with the San Francisco Symphony in "a night of Sacrilegious Games!" (details of the program have not yet been announced).
On 23 July at Davies Hall, Robert Moody leads the Time for Three string trio (Ranaan Meyer, double bass & vocals; Nicolas Kendall, violin & vocals; & Charles Yang, violin & vocals) along with the San Francisco Symphony in Christopher Theofanidis's Rainbow Body, Mason Bates's Silicon Hymnal, & Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
Instrumental
Pianists Rachel Breen & Sergey Belyavsky perform Carnivals: from Schumann to Strauss to Stravinsky, featuring Schumann's Carnaval Opus 9, Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka, Moritz Rosenthal's Carnaval de Vienne, & more, at the Piedmont Piano Company on 26 July.
Pianist Alex Stabile will perform works by Bach & Ravel as well as selections from Rachmaninoff’s Études-Tableaux Opus 39 at the Piedmont Piano Company on 27 July.
Early / Baroque Music
The San Francisco Early Music Society celebrates the legacy of William Byrd, a Catholic in Protestant Elizabethan England, with the presentation at Grace Cathedral on 17 - 18 July of Secret Byrd, an immersive concert featuring The Gesualdo Six from the UK & our the local Wildcat Viols in collaboration with Concert Theatre Works.
Jazz, Blues, Folk
Monsieur Periné brings their fusion of the "jazz manouche style of Django Reinhardt with dance-inspiring Latin American rhythms" to the SF Jazz Center from 17 to 20 July.
On 19, 21, & 22 July, Paul Simon (yes, that Paul Simon) will perform his new album Seven Psalms, "along with new arrangements of familiar favorites"; though the website says he is performing "in intimate venues with pristine acoustics", the concerts are nonetheless in Davies Hall.
This seems like a bit of an oddity, as orchestras are collective & the blues seems like an individualist art form, but Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience, featuring "cinematic narration" by Freeman as well as an in-person appearance, surveys the Delta Blues with performances by musicians from the Ground Zero Blues Club as well as the San Francisco Symphony, & that's at Davies Hall on 25 July.
Ravi Coltrane visits the SF Jazz Center for a week as Resident Artistic Director, with a Listening Party on 23 July, his group Coltraxx (Coltrane on tenor & soprano saxophones, David Virelles on keyboards, Dezron Douglas on bass, Johnathan Blake on drums) on 24 - 25 July, & the Ravi Coltrane Quintet (Coltrane on tenor & soprano saxophone, Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet, Robin Eubanks on trombone, Gadi Lehavi on keyboards, & Elé Howell on drums) on 26 - 27 July.
Dance
ODC Dance presents Summer Sampler, featuring the world premieres of Nothing’s Going to Make Sense (choreography by KT Nelson) & Theories of Time (choreography by Mia J Chong), as well as 10,000 Steps: A Dance About Its Own Making (choreography by Catherine Galasso), & that's 17 - 20 July at the ODC Theater.
Art Means Painting
The Minnesota Street Project Foundation presents the 2025 San Francisco Art Book Fair, featuring an "exhibition and celebration of printed material from independent publishers, artists, designers, collectors, and enthusiasts from around the world", & that's from 11 to 13 July.
Black Spaces: Reclaim & Remain opens at the Oakland Museum of California on 18 July.
Ferlinghetti for San Francisco, featuring artworks on paper created by the renowned poet & publisher, opens at the Legion of Honor on 19 July.
Cinematic
Some film series launch this month at BAM/PFA: Mikio Naruse: The Auteur as Salaryman, exploring the works of the great Japanese filmmaker, begins 3 July, with movies screening through 21 December; & Smiles of a Summer Night: Swedish Auteurs, featuring works by Ingmar Bergman & other Swedish filmmakers, opens 11 July, with movies screening through 29 August.
The second Fraenkel Film Festival, sponsored by the Fraenkel Gallery & featuring films chosen by visual artists, runs at the Roxie Theater from 9 to 19 July (all proceeds will benefit the Roxie); there's a terrific line-up of movies, & some that caught my eye are Chaplin's The Great Dictator, Dorothy Arzner's Merrily We Go to Hell, & The Wizard of Oz.
The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival opens 17 July & runs through 3 August; check here for films & locations.
On 19 July, as part of the Legion of Honor's centennial celebration, the museum will host a free showing of Hitchcock's Vertigo, which includes several scenes shot on location at the Legion.
Godzilla Fest 2025 plays at the Balboa Theater from 18 to 20 July; check out the schedule here. If only Godzilla was the worst monster we faced these days. . .
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