the Bay Bridge from the Embarcadero
30 January 2026
26 January 2026
Another Opening, Another Show: February 2026
Shortest month, but still a lot going on (particularly, for some reason, on the 22nd). Plus there's the anticipation of things to come: the San Francisco Opera will announce its next season on 3 February. Our plates are (potentially) full, but we still look forward to more & more. . . .
Theatrical
San Francisco Playhouse presents David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, directed by Bridgette Loriaux, from 5 February to 14 March.
From 5 to 15 February, the Oakland Theater Project presents The Mountaintop, Katori Hall's play about Dr Martin Luther King Jr on the night before his assassination, directed by Michael Socrates Moran & James Mercer II.
BroadwaySF presents the musical version of The Notebook at the Orpheum from 10 February to 1 March.
On 14 February at the Curran Theater, BroadwaySF presents Richard Thomas in Mark Twain Tonight!, which was written & originally performed by Hal Holbrook.
ACT presents Paranormal Activity by Levi Holloway, directed by Felix Barrett & restaged by Holloway, an "original story set in the world of the terrifying Paranormal Activity film franchise", at the Toni Rembe Theater from 19 February through 15 March
The Berkeley Playhouse presents the musical Once (book by Enda Walsh, music & lyrics by Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová), directed by Josh Marx & with music direction by Michael Patrick Wiles, from 20 February to 15 March.
Berkeley Rep presents Arthur Miller's All My Sons, directed by David Mendizábal & starring Jimmy Smits, from 20 February through 29 March.
On 20 & 21 February at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Hume Concert Hall, the SFCM Musical Theater Department will present The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (music & lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachel Sheinkin), directed by Michael Mohammed, with musical direction by Michael Horsley.
Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience, by Adrienne Torf & Raymond O Caldwell, an exploration of the poet & activist's life & works by the Fountain Theater of Los Angeles, including musical settings by Torf, John Adams, & Bernice Johnson Reagon, will play at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on 24 February.
The African-American Shakespeare Company presents The Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney, directed by James Mercer II, from 25 February to 29 March at the Phoenix Theater in downtown San Francisco.
On 28 February at the Curran Theater, BroadwaySF presents All Things Equal: The Life & Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a one-person show by Rupert Holmes, starring Michelle Azar as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, & directed by Laley Lippard.
Operatic
West Bay Opera presents Richard Strauss's Salome, conducted by José Luis Moscovich & directed by Richard Harrell, with cast TBA, at the Lucie Stern Theater in Palo Alto, on 13, 15, 21, & 22 February; there will be a free preview with piano on 5 February at the Holt Building in Palo Alto.
Pocket Opera presents Puccini's Madame [sic] Butterfly, with Music Director Temirzhan Yerzhanov & Stage Director Melody Tachibana King, featuring Hannah Cho as Cio Cio San, Chester Pidduck as Pinkerton, Anders Fröhlich as Sharpless, & HaYoung Jung as Suzuki, & that's 20 February at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 22 February at the Gunn Theater at The Legion of Honor in San Francisco, & 1 March at the Hillside Club in Berkeley.
Opera San José presents the classic double-bill of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana & Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, conducted by Alma Deutscher & directed by Shawna Lucey, at the California Theater from 15 February to 1 March.
West Edge Opera presents Snapshot, its preview of four operas in process: Case Closed (composer Martin Rokeach, librettist Steven Blum), in which a TV news reporter covers a crime she was responsible for (a car accident after which she fled the scene); Cry Wolf (composer JL Marlor, librettist Clare Fuyuko Bierman), in which a trio of young men get caught up in on-line "ideological rabbit holes"; Threshold of Brightness (composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh, librettist Lisa Flanagan), about Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, who insisted on writing "as freely as a man would"; & The Joining (composer Issac lo Schankler, librettist Aiden K Feltkeamp), about a futurist world in which golems play a prominent & ambiguous role, & you can experience it all on 28 February at First Congregational in Berkeley & 1 March at the Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco's War Memorial Complex.
Choral
Sacred & Profane performs Fire in My Heart: Songs of Love, a program ranging from the Renaissance to our own perhaps less distinguished day, featuring works by Thomas Morley, Morten Lauridsen, Dominick DiOrio, Reena Esmail, Darita Seth, Edna Yeh, & others, & that's 14 February at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley & 15 February at Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco.
On 22 February at Mission Dolores Basilica, the Nebula Consort concert will include Warum ist das Licht gegeben, opus 74 by Brahms & Three Shakespeare Songs by Vaughan Williams.
The San Francisco Early Music Society presents women's vocal ensemble Vajra Voices in Aquitania to Appalachia: Our Ancient Belonging, a program ranging from 11th-century polyphony to American traditions of devotional singing; the group will be joined for these performances by special guest Shira Kammen, playing vielle & medieval harp, & you can hear them 27 February at First Presbyterian in Palo Alto, 28 February at First Congregational in Berkeley, & 1 March at Saint Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal in San Francisco.
Nate Widelitz leads the California Bach Society in On Leaving: Music for Parting and Passage, a "contemplative program centered on loss, longing, and transcendence", featuring works by Bach, Galina Grigorjeva, & "multiple settings of a plaintive Tenebrae text", & you can hear it 27 February at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, 28 February at All Saints' Episcopal in Palo Alto, & 1 March at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley.
Vocalists
On 2 February at the Caroline Hume Concert Hall, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music presents baritone Lester Lynch with pianist John Wilson, performing Samuel Barber's Dover Beach (with René Mandel & Wyatt Underhill, violins; Kaya Bryla, viola; Anne Richardson, cello), Gerald Finzi's Let Us Garlands Bring, Wagner's Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge from Das Rheingold. his Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde as arranged by Liszt, Giordano's Nemico della patria from Andrea Chénier, Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, a selection of Spirituals (Hold Out Your Light, Sweet Home, & Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho), Gershwin's A Foggy Day, Cole Porter's Were thine that special face, & Irving Berlin's I Love a Piano.
On 5 February at Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances presents Cécile McLorin Salvant, joined by the ensemble of Sullivan Fortner (piano), Yasushi Nakamura (bass), & Kyle Poole (drums), performing selection from her new album, Oh Snap, as well as other pieces.
On 5 February at the Henry J Kaiser Center for the Arts in Oakland, Mandy Patinkin, with Adam Ben-David on piano, will perform a "hand-picked collection of classic numbers".
On 7 February at Herbst Theater, San Francisco Performances presents baritone Davóne Tines with performance ensemble Ruckus in What Is Your Hand in This?, a program including works by Stephen Foster, Handel, Douglas Adam August Balliett, Joshua McCarter Simpson, John Dickinson, Benjamin Carr, Julius Eastman, Clyde Otis, George W Clark, William Billings, & Sam Cooke, as well as traditional tunes.
On 21 February at Zellerbach Playhouse, Cal Performances presents jazz vocalist & composer Somi, performing recent works based on her roots in Rwanda, Uganda, & the United States.
Dianne Reeves appears at the SF Jazz Center on 20 - 22 February.
Madeleine Peyroux appears at the SF Jazz Center on 24 - 25 Feburary.
Orchestral
This month's San Francisco Symphony concerts lean heavily on Mozart & Beethoven: on 5 - 7 February, Harry Bicket leads an all-Mozart concert, with vocal soloists Golda Schultz (soprano) & Samuel White (tenor), featuring the Serenade #6 in D major, Serenata notturna; the Symphony 34 in C major; Giunse alfin il momento...Deh vieni, non tardar, from The Marriage of Figaro, Temerari…Come scoglio, from Così fan tutte, Don Ottavio, son morta!…Or sai chi l’onore, from Don Giovanni, & the Symphony 38, the Prague; on 19 - 21 February, Jaap van Zweden leads the Beethoven 2 & the Beethoven 7; & on 26 - 27 February & 1 March, Manfred Honeck conducts Beethoven's Coriolan Overture, the Haydn 93, & Mozart's Requiem, in a "dramatic production conceived by Manfred Honeck", which includes "dramatic readings, choral interpolations, and other enhancements [that] bring new insights to the score"; the vocal soloists are Ying Fang (soprano), Sasha Cooke (mezzo-soprano), David Portillo (tenor), Stephano Park (bass), & Adrian Roberts (narrator).
On 1 February at Herbst Theater, John Kendall Bailey leads the San Francisco Civic Music Association in The Ballad of Revolt by Harald Sæverud, Finlandia by Sibelius, & the Beethoven 3, the Eroica; the concert is free but RSVPs & donations are appreciated.
On 7 February at Heron Arts in San Francisco, One Found Sound presents Supernatural, a program "inspired by the natural and otherworldly that push the boundaries of the observable universe", featuring Stravinksy's Dumbarton Oaks, Wings by Darian Donovan Thomas, Violent, Violent Sea by Missy Mazzoli, & the Mendelssohn 4, the Italian.
On 14 February in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Hume Concert Hall, Edwin Outwater leads the SFCM Orchestra in Steven Mackey's Urban Ocean, Gershwin's An American In Paris (this piece will be conducted by Chih-Yao Chang), & the Brahms 1.
On 20 February at the Paramount, Kedrick Armstrong (with Tracy Silverman as violin soloist) leads the Oakland Symphony in the world premiere of Daniel Bernard Roumain's America, To US (an Oakland Symphony commission), as well as Chen Yi's Introduction, Andante, and Allegro, the Adagio from the Mahler 10, Reena Esmail's She Will Transform You
On 20 & 21 February at Hertz Hall, David Milnes leads the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in Varèse's Amériques & the Shostakovich 7.
Jory Fankuchen leads the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in Seeing Double, a program featuring Jens Ibsen's Scene Symphony (an SFCO Commission with support from the NEA), the Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra by Philip Glass (Jory Vinikour on harpsichord), & the Haydn 49, La Passione, & that's 27 February at the Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco, 28 February at First United Methodist in Palo Alto, & 1 March at First Congregational in Berkeley; concerts are free but RSVPs are appreciated.
On 28 February at Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony celebrates the Lunar New Year: Year of the Horse with a concert led by Mei-Ann Chen, with soloists George Gao on erhu & Yuhsin Galaxy Su on clarinet joining the band to perform music by Huan-Zhi Li, Che-Yi Lee, Tyzen Hsiao, Huang Ruo, George Gao, An-Lun Huang, Chen Ge Xin, & the ever-beloved Traditional.
Chamber Music
On 1 February at Davies Hall, a chamber group of San Francisco Symphony musicians will play Boccherini's String Quintet in D major, Opus 37, Arthur Foote's Quartet #1 in C major, Opus 23, & Enescu's String Octet in C major, Opus 7.
On 8 February at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, the Berkelium String Quartet, a new local chamber group (Dan Flanagan, violin; Jacob Hansen-Joseph, viola; Michael Graham & Karen Shinozaki Sor, cellos), will perform as-yet unannounced pieces.
On 8 & 15 February at the Valley Center for Performing Arts in Oakland, the Oakland Symphony Youth Orchestra will presents chamber concerts (the program has not been announced for either date).
On 13 & 15 February at Old First Concerts, Sixth Station Trio (Katelyn Tan, piano; Anju Goto, violin; Federico Strand Ramirez, cello), will perform music by Joe Hisaishi from the Studio Ghibli classic Howl’s Moving Castle.
On 17 February at the Barbro Osher Recital Hall, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music presents its monthly Chamber Music Tuesday, this month featuring violinist Stella Chen, who will perform, joined by SFCM faculty & students, Mozart's Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, & Brahms's String Sextet #2 in G Major, Opus 36; on 16 February, in the SFCM's Sol Joseph Recital Hall, Chen will offer a Master Class.
On 20 February at Old First Concerts, Ensemble Les Six (for this concert, Catalina Barraza, violin; Katie Youn, cello; & Ihang Lin, piano) will perform Chopin's Études, Opus 10, #3, #4, & #5; Jessie Montgomery's Duo for Violin and Cello; the Handel/Halvorsen Passacaglia; & Debussy's Piano Trio in G major.
On 21 February at Noe Valley Ministry, the San Francisco Civic Music Association presents Juego de Ladrones by Oscar Navarro, Paul Taffanel's Quintet for Winds in G minor, & Elgar's Piano Quintet in A minor, Opus 84; the concert is free but RSVPs & donations are appreciated.
On 22 February at the Piedmont Center for the Arts, the Berkeley Symphony offers Roots and Resonances, a chamber program curated by composer Samuel Adams that will include Salina Fisher's Komorebi, Osvaldo Golijov's Mariel, Michio Kitazume's Side By Side, Haruka Fujii's Divisions, & Sundial by Adams.
On 22 February at Noe Valley Ministry, Noe Music presents the Junction Trio (Stefan Jackiw, violin; Jay Campbell, cello; Conrad Tao, piano), performing John Cage's Melodies 1 - 3, Beethoven's Piano Trio in D major, Opus 70 #1, the Ghost, John Zorn's Ghosts (interspersed after Beethoven’s Largo assai movement), Cage's Melodies 4 - 6, & Schubert's Piano Trio in B-flat major.
On 22 February at Herbst Theater, Chamber Music San Francisco presents the Aris Quartet (Anna Katharina Wildermuth & Noëmi Zipperling, violins; Caspar Vinzens, viola; Lukas Sieber, cello), who will perform the Beethoven String Quartet in G Major, Opus18, #2; the Shostakovich String Quartet in C minor, Opus 110; & the Brahms String Quartet in A minor, Opus 51, #2.
On 22 February the Hillside Club in Berkeley, as part of its Chamber Music Sundaes series, will present the CMS Wind Quintet (Laura Griffiths, oboe; Mike Gamburg, bassoon; Jeremy Simas, bass clarinet; Kevin Rivard, French horn; Britton Day, piano) performing Poulenc's Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano & Mozart's Quintet for piano and winds.
On 22 February at Hertz Hall, Cal Performances presents the Takács Quartet (Edward Dusinberre & Harumi Rhodes, violins; Richard O’Neill, viola, András Fejér, cello; please note that Fejér, the last remaining member of the original 1975 Takács Quartet, will step down at the end of this season, making this performance his final Berkeley appearance with the ensemble), who will perform the Bay Area premiere of NEXUS by Clarice Assad as well as Haydn's String Quartet in G minor, the Rider & Debussy's String Quartet.
On 28 February at Hertz Hall, Matthew Sadowski leads the UC Berkeley Wind Ensemble in Gustav Holst's Second Suite in F, Zhou Tian's Nocturne, & Mark Camphouse's A Movement for Rosa.
Here's what's going on at Noontime Concerts this month, if you're near Old Saint Mary's in San Francisco on a Tuesday at 12:30: on 3 February, pianist Cristiana Pegoraro will perform pieces (some adapted for solo piano) by Rossini, Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Mozart, Andrew Lloyd Webber, & herself; on 10 February, pianist Mark Valenti will perform works by Debussy, Barber, & Brahms; on 17 February, the Bridge Players (Amy Zanrosso, piano; Randall Weiss, violin; Natalia Vershilova, viola; Victoria Ehrlich, cello) will perform works by Fauré & Schumann; & on 24 February, flutist William Underwood III & pianist Carl Blake will perform together.
Instrumental
On 1 February at Hertz Hall, Cal Performances presents Steven Banks on baritone saxophone with pianist Xak Bjerken performing Golden Silhouettes, a program of new pieces composed for the duo by Carlos Simon (hear them) & John Musto (Shadow of the Blues) as well as the Saint-Saëns Bassoon Sonata, Beethoven's 7 Variations on “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen”, & Barber's Cello Sonata, all re-imagined for saxophone & piano.
On 1 February at Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony presents An Evening with Nicola Benedetti; violinist Benedetti will be joined by Plínio Fernandes on guitar, Hanzhi Wang on accordion, & Adrian Daurov on cello to perform works, or arrangements of works, by Maria Theresia von Paradis, Henryk Wieniawski, Manuel Ponce, Paganini, Sarasate, Vittorio Monti, Ernest Bloch, & Debussy, as well as traditional tunes.
On 1 February at the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland, pianist Mira T Sundara Rajan will perform Finding Jazz in the Classics: Improvisation, Harmony, Spirituality, a program including works by Bach, Brahms, Scriabin, & Ginastera.
On 8 February at Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony presents in solo recital pianist Yefim Bronfman, who will perform Schumann's Arabesque in C major for Piano, Opus 18, the Brahms Piano Sonata #3 in F minor, Opus 5, Debussy's Images for Piano, Set 2, & Beethoven's Piano Sonata #23 in F minor, Opus 57, the Appassionata.
On 9 February at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Barbro Osher Recital Hall, pianist Sarah Cahill performs No Ordinary Light, "a new project combining classical and new compositions on the theme of homage and loss", featuring Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin, Prelude: Hammer the Sky Bright by Samuel Adams, Hommage a Fauré by Robert Helps, Homage to William Dawson by Zenobia Powell Perry, Fugue to David Tudor & Hommage à Milhaud by Lou Harrison, Holding Pattern by Maggie Payne, & Circle Songs by Danny Clay (the project title comes from Jawaharalal Nehru’s eulogy after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: “The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light").
On 10 February at Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances presents pianist Bruce Liu playing Ligeti's Fanfares, Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor, the Moonlight & his Sonata in C major, the Waldstein, Chopin's Nocturnes, Opus 27, Ravel's Alborada del gracioso, Mompou's Au clair de la lune, Albéniz's El Puerto, & Liszt's Rhapsodie espagnole.
On 20 February at Herbst Theater, San Francisco Performances presents violinist Jennifer Koh with pianist Thomas Sauer performing Lili Boulanger's D’un matin de printemps, her Nocturne, & her Cortège), Tania León's Para Violin y Piano, Ravel's Violin Sonata #2 in G Major, Saariaho's Tocar, & Fauré's Violin Sonata #1 in A Major, Opus 13.
On 20 February at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, mandolinist Avi Avital leads Philharmonia Baroque in works by Vivaldi, Bach, Giovanni Sollima, & Bartók.
On 25 February at Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony presents pianist Mao Fujita in solo recital, performing as-yet-unannounced music.
On 27 February in Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances presents Chris Thile on mandolin & vocals, performing "an eclectic program, including selections from his new recording of Bach sonatas and partitas".
On 28 February at the Berkeley Piano Club on Haste Street, Four Seasons Arts presents pianist Awadagin Pratt performing the Brahms Ballades, Opus 10, his Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, & selections from Couperin's 16th Order.
Early / Baroque Music
Nicholas McGegan returns to Philharmonia Baroque to conduct Baroque Garlands, a program featuring Handel's Dixit Dominus & Rameau's La Guirlande, with vocal soloists Nola Richardson (soprano) & Aaron Sheehan (tenor), & that's 6 February at Herbst Theater in San Francisco, 7 February at First Congregational in Berkeley, & 8 February at Bing Concert Hall at Stanford.
Voices of Music will perform Valentine's Day: Love Songs from the 17th Century, featuring soprano Amanda Forsythe & a small instrumental ensemble performing English & Italian songs, & that's 13 February at First Congregational in Palo Alto, 14 February at Old First in San Francisco, & 15 February at First Congregational in Berkeley.
Jeffrey Thomas leads the American Bach Soloists in The Harmonic Labyrinth, a program featuring Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Locatelli's Violin Concerto in D Major, the Harmonic Labyrinth, Bach's Non sa che sia dolore, Cantata 209, & Scarlatti's Salve Regina, with soloists Maya Kherani (soprano), Sarah Coit (mezzo-soprano), YuEun Gemma Kim (violin), & Bethanne Walker (flute), & you can hear them 27 February at Saint Stephen's in Belvedere, 28 February at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley, 1 March at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, & 2 March at Davis Community Church in Davis.
Modern / Contemporary Music
Left Coast Chamber Ensemble presents Metamorphosen, a program featuring Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss (for septet), Luciano Berio's Sequenza XIVb for double bass, Tounen for solo flute by Hendel Almetus, & Sonitudes by Robert Hughes, on 31January at the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Berkeley & on 1 February at Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco.
On 6 - 7 February, the San Francisco Symphony presents SoundBox: Dream Awake, curated by violinist Alexi Kenney, in an unspecified program that "leads us into a realm infused with nocturnal energy and psychedelic fantasy".
On 7 February at Hertz Hall, Cal Performances presents the Eco Ensemble, directed by David Milnes, in a program featuring works from two new members of UC Berkeley's composition department, Matthew Evan Taylor & Mu-Xuan Lin.
On 7 February at Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances presents mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato with Time for Three (Nicolas Kendall & Charles Yang, violin & vocals, & Ranaan Meyer, bass & vocals) in Emily – No Prisoner Be, a setting by Kevin Puts of 24 poems by Emily Dickinson.
On 22 February at Zellerbach Playhouse, Cal Performances presents Sandbox Percussion (Jonathan Allen, Victor Caccese, Ian Rosenbaum, Terry Sweeney) & pianists Conor Hanick & Matthew Aucoin from AMOC (American Modern Opera Company) in Canto Ostinato by Simeon ten Holt, a "layered, shimmering minimalist work from the 1970s that has earned a dedicated following in ten Holt’s native Netherlands".
On 27 February at Herbst Theater, San Francisco Performances presents the Attacca Quartet (Amy Schroeder & Domenic Salerni, violins; Nathan Schram, viola; Andrew Yee, cello) & vocalist Theo Bleckmann in the West Coast premiere of David Lang's note to a friend.
On 27 February at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Barbro Osher Recital Hall, Nicole Paiement leads the SFCM's New Music Ensemble in the world premiere of Inbal Segev's Postcards to Jerusalem, Missy Mazzoli's Ecstatic Science, Billy Childs's A Day in the Forest of Dreams, & the world premiere of the chamber orchestra version of Jake Heggie's "From the Book of Nightmares" (with soprano Lisa Delan & cellist Evan Kahn).
Jazz
On 13 February at Herbst Theater, SF Jazz presents the New York Voices (Kim Nazarian, Darmon Meader, Lauren Kinhan, Peter Eldridge) as part of their farewell tour.
On 21 February at the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland, the Marcus Shelby Sextet will perform Conversation: The Language of Charles Mingus, a program exploring the legacy of the great bassist; in addition to Shelby on bass, the Sextet includes Darren Johnston (trumpet), Tony Peebles (alto sax), Danny Lubin-Laden (trombone), Greg Jacobs (piano), & Jemal Ramirez (drums).
On 28 February, there will be An Evening With Sun Ra Arkestra at The Chapel on Valencia Street in San Francisco.
Dance
From 10 to 15 February, San Francisco Ballet presents Program 2: Balanchine, Father of American Ballet, featuring Diamonds (music by Tchaikovsky), Serenade (music by Tchaikovsky), & Stars and Stripes (music by John Philip Sousa, arranged by Hershy Kay); & from 27 February to 8 March, Program 3: The Blake Works, a trilogy of dances with scenic & costume design as well as choreography by William Forsythe & music by James Blake.
From 13 to 15 February at the ODC Theater, Smuin Contemporary Ballet presents Spring Point, a program featuring new works by choreographers Maggie Carey, Cassidy Isaacson, Julia Feldman, & Babatunji.
On 14 February at the Golden Gate Theater, BroadwaySF presents the World Ballet Company (based in Los Angeles, led by Sasha Gorskaya & Gulya Hartwick) in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.
On 14 February at the Brava Theater Center, Fever presents Ballet of Lights: Sleeping Beauty.
On 21 - 22 February at Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances presents choreographer Kyle Abraham's troupe, A.I.M (Abraham.In.Motion), performing three of his works: The Gettin’ (music from Max Roach, with arrangements & original compositions by Robert Glasper), If We Were a Love Song (music from Nina Simone), & 2 X 4 (music by Shelley Washington); the music will be performed live by Charenée Wade & Crystal Monee Hall, vocals; Liany Mateo, bass; Luther Allison, piano; Otis Brown III, drums; Guy Dellecave, saxophone; & other musicians to be announced.
From 27 February to 1 March at Zellerbach Playhouse, Cal Performances presents the Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre in Gathering; "[c]onceived, written, and directed by choreographer Samar Haddad King", the work "explores themes of love, loss, trauma, and dislocation. Through movement, text, song, and puppetry"; be warned, though, that audience participation will apparently be requested (or required).
Mostly Museums
City Arts and Lectures presents photographer Sally Mann in conversation with Ted Orland at the Sydney Goldstein Theater on 11 February.
Cinematic
Here are the series launching at BAM/PFA this month: Documentary Voices, which is self-explanatory, begins 4 February, & Climate Journalism on Screen, which is also self-explanatory, runs from 7 to 22 February.
The Mostly British Film Festival runs 5 to 12 February at the Vogue Theater in San Francisco; see the full schedule here.
The 28th San Francisco Independent Film Festival (SF Indie Fest) will take place at the Roxie Theater from 5 to 15 February; check out the schedule here.
On 14 - 15 February, you can check out Nippon Vibes: Japanese Cinema Weekend at New People; in "collaboration with The Roxie, New People Cinema reopens in historic San Francisco Japantown with a special weekend celebrating Japanese cinema. This pop-up event highlights the theme of awakening—a moment of return, renewal, and rediscovery through cinema across genres and generations"; there's a great line-up of movies, including your name, Kokuho (set in the world of kabuki theater), the OG Godzilla, & Kurosawa's Throne of Blood.
This month's Classic Movie Matinee at the Orinda Theater is Blonde Venus, the Josef von Sternberg / Marlene Dietrich film from 1932, so yes, it's pre-Code, & that's on 24 February.
Museum Monday 2026/4
detail of The March to Sagesse (The March to Wisdom), a fiber sculpture by Sheila Hicks, on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) as part of the exhibit New Work: Sheila Hicks
23 January 2026
19 January 2026
What I read in 2025 (part 2)
Part 1 is here.
King John
Shakespeare
So now we get into the history plays. This one is unrelated to the main series, but covers similar themes (chiefly, where does power come from & how does it operate & maintain itself). I'm surprised this play doesn't get staged more often; it has a lot going for it, including many characters any actor would find a gold mine.
Richard II
Shakespeare
As they say in the movies, it begins. That is, the arc of royal history as seen by the Tudors, from Richard II losing out to Henry IV, the kingdom descending into the chaos of the War of the Roses & the final triumph of the youthful Henry VII (I am deliberately omitting Henry V, as I'll have more to say about him & his play in a bit). But this first spectacularly inappropriate king is foreshadowed for us by the vacillating King John, who is weak in a different way from Richard. It can be difficult at first to realize just how weak Richard is, as he is an endless fountain of whirling words. But it's his creation of himself through histrionic speeches, his over-reactions, his theatrical self-representation, that occupies his attention, not governing a kingdom that is slipping away from him. (He provide an interesting contrast with Henry V, another theatrical, self-created king, as I discuss below. Interesting that Richard captures my sympathies in a way Henry does not.) I love the abdication scene, where Richard displays the dazzling bounce of wordplay so beloved of Elizabethans (& me, though not everyone responds to it) to such an extent that one exasperated noble interrupts to ask if he's actually going to, you know, do something, meaning abdicate. The wonderful thing about Shakespeare is that the dizzying puns carry psychological weight:
Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be.
Therefore no “no,” for I resign to thee.
Now, mark me how I will undo myself. . . .
"No [I]": exactly. He's fascinating, but would you really want to have to rely on him as ruler?
Henry IV, Part One
Henry IV, Part Two
Henry V
Shakespeare
The Henry IV plays are of course endlessly rich, but I've always found Henry V a bit of a slog. The first Henry IV play was apparently so popular it required a sequel, & the characters (particularly, of course, Falstaff, but we shouldn't underestimate the depth of the others) are so rich that the story could easily continue, even though the basic psychological dilemma – Prince Hal's insistence on acting the wild man, to his father's dismay – is, if not actually solved in Part One, mitigated enough so that Henry IV & Hal can enact the same process of transgression then forgiveness at the end of Part Two. But then that's the beauty of Hal's behavior: he sets it up so that he will only be what his father wants him to be once the father is safely dead, & therefore can never know that his son did not disgrace him. Henry IV may be a master of realpolitik, but Hal's cynicism puts him to shame: at the end of his very first scene, he announces to us via soliloquy that his wildness is all an act, a deliberate choice so that, in a PR coup, he can suddenly, upon accession to the throne, become dignified & stately. It's almost just a side benefit that his behavior until then will cause pain to his usurping father.
Causing pain to father figures is just part of who Hal ineluctably is: witness his treatment of Falstaff, who shows genuine, if self-interested, affection for the heir to the throne, whereas there's often an edge to Hal's rejoinders, most particularly in the scene in which he & Falstaff act out Hal's reception by his royal father (again, note the theatricality of what they do; it's all playacting with Hal). the one ending with Falstaff exclaiming "Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world!" to which Hal, his mask slipping a bit, gives the chilling response, "I do, I will." Other characters rush in with news, breaking the moment. One wonders where they would have gone from there without the interruption.
Banish all the world is pretty much what Henry V has done; he is a hollow man, one who has played a part for so long that all he can do is play parts. The play Henry V is often described as Shakespeare's portrait of a model King. I raise an eyebrow sky-high at this. For one thing, that's just not how Shakespeare operates. His characteristic mode is excess, & that includes multiple angles on his characters. He's not really in the business of setting up paragons & ideals. There's just too much in the play that works against the view that it's some sort of handbook for royal governance.
The play opens with a Chorus, meaning a single narrator, who cries out "O for a muse of fire!" I remember my Shakespeare professor at Cal, Janet Adelman, pointing out what an odd line this is: "Shakespeare had a muse of fire" were her words, & surely by this pint in his career he knew it. Later, the Chorus will decry the inadequacies of the theater to portray the mighty events & royal splendors it's representing. I think what we have here is Brecht's alienation effect avant la lettre: we are constantly made aware of the staged, theatrical quality of what we're seeing. It's all constructed, like Hal/Henry V's persona, only with enough nails & sutures & taping shown to raise doubts for those paying attention.
Look at the whole invasion of France, which forms the major action of the play: at the end of Henry IV Part Two, the dying king gives his son classic advice on what to do when your hold on power is shaky & you need a distraction from looming troubles: "Be it thy course to busy giddy minds / With foreign quarrels . . . . " (You know, like invading Venezuela, or claiming Greenland.) Henry V opens, once the Chorus bounds off, with the bishop of Ely & the archbishop of Canterbury essentially saying that in order to forestall a bill that would take some of the riches of the Church, they will give Henry a huge sum (that is, a bribe) to conduct wars in France. It's never, ever a good thing in Shakespeare when the Catholic hierarchy gets together to try to control things (or protect their own interests, which amounts to the same thing).
And this claim to France is apparently vague enough so that Henry has to have it explained to him, which is done in a very lengthy speech of dazzling obscurity, based on whether women can inherit & where Pharamond (you know: Pharamond!) thought the "Salic land" was & blah blah blah. I assume even people more adept at genealogies than I am find this forest too thick for easy traveling. How could this not be intentionally ironic on some level? And at the end, it turns out Henry had already decided: the ambassador from France is waiting outside. He'd already decided, but he needed the cover story. It's a consistent pattern with Henry that he avoids responsibility: if, during the invasion, he threatens to destroy a town, giving them gruesome details about how they're going to suffer, then it's their fault, not his, because they didn't surrender. Even when the outcome is good, in his mind, he disclaims responsibility: after his victory at Agincourt, he repeatedly announces that the credit goes to God. That's because Henry himself doesn't quite exist, except as a performative gesture that seems suited to the moment.
He's this way with his own people to, as witness his whiny "Upon the king!" soliloquy, when he, in disguise (again), essentially tricks a common soldier into giving his opinion of the King & his wars. The soldier feels that if he's killed in a foreign land, without having the chance to say goodbye to his family or to receive the last rites, the King has responsibility for his end. Henry, of course, doesn't like this, but Henry, of course, is incorrect. He brought this war on, he uprooted the common soldiers from their towns, & he does bear responsibility for what happens to them there.
That scene with the soldier also results in a mean trick played upon both the soldier & Fluellen, the Welsh captain who is possibly the only truly boring character Shakespeare ever created (but even he deserves better than this sub-frat-boy-style prank). It's a bit of tomfoolery about striking someone who is wearing a glove given as a pledge. The predictable ensues, & Henry buys them off with money (which is pretty insulting, & so much for that sentimental touch of Harry in the night). This happens after God wins for him at Agincourt. The bathos of the descent from a great military victory to stupid pranks, again, has to be intentionally pointed at some level. (Incidentally, people often mention that Magna Carta is never mentioned in King John, but the real sin of historical omission is the failure to mention the English longbows & their role in Agincourt in Henry V.)
By now, it's clear to those paying attention that Henry V has no real core to his being, but shifts guises (& evades responsibility for his actions) at all times. This brings us to the scene in which he "courts" Princess Katherine of France. She's listed as an article in the peace agreements, & it's clearly a dynasty-driven choice of spouse, but Henry pretends he's just a bluff soldier unskilled at wooing the pretty girl, even though we've seen him, as Prince Hal, slinging wit & woo like a pro with Doll Tearsheet & Mistress Quckly. After saying he's just no good at this kind of thing, gosh darn it, he them proceeds to talk her (& our) ears off, pirouetting prettily among the puns like the daintiest sonneteer at the most refined court.
And what is all this for? For a stake in France that is meltingly brief but will distort & haunt British history for years after. And the audience was aware of this: the Henry VI plays had been hugely successful, & there is a constant theme in them of the loss of France. In fact, at the end of Henry V, the Chorus shows up for a farewell appearance, & spends the final half of his/her last speech reminding us that what we've just seen won is going to be quickly lost, very quickly lost, with tragic results, as we all know from seeing the earlier plays. So Henry's brief victory was not only pointless & unnecessary, but an on-going cause of grief: a model King? Really?
Henry VI, Part One
Henry VI, Part Two
Henry VI, Part Three
Shakespeare
I really love these plays, & though the Henry IV plays are obviously superior in many ways, I might even have greater affection for these plays than for their betters. There's something about the descent into chaos, through heedlessness, selfishness, & cruelty, that, to state the obvious, seems very resonant with our times. I would love to see a staging of the trilogy, & I mean pretty much as written, not some War of the Roses mash-up done so that people can put on Richard III without having the audience spend the whole play going "Who is Queen Margaret, & why is she so upset?" Henry VI is another in Shakespeare's portrait gallery of Inappropriate Kings; he strikes me as an interesting prefiguration of Hamlet: both men are thrust by fate & chance into an active role for which they are temperamentally ill-suited.
Richard III
Shakespeare
Shaw gave the perfect summary: the greatest Punch & Judy show ever written. Richard is one of those Elizabethan villains so zestful in their scheming that they become almost lovable. But even here, with an official Tudor villain, Shakespeare humanizes him: his night terrors, his complex attitude to his body.
Henry VIII
Shakespeare (& John Fletcher)
A bit removed from the series, but it serves as a capstone. I find this play, like Henry V, a bit of a slog, but for different reasons: it seems a bit diffuse, a bit on-the-surface, a bit pageant-like, with plenty of colorful processions & suchlike separated by set-piece moments of pathos, exemplary stories of the fall of the great. I have heard it's very effective on stage; I've never had the chance to test this proposition in person, but it makes sense, as pageants are, by their nature, things better seen than read about. There's an interesting dance going on in this play; there's sympathy for Katherine, but not too much, as where would that leave Elizabeth I, the daughter of her successor; Anne Boleyn's fate is not mentioned; Henry is presented with "plausible deniability:" his roving eye is caught by Anne, but we're also supposed to think he's genuinely troubled by the validity of his marriage to his brother's widow. The characterization of him is not too probing, mostly limited to his tendency to exclaim Ha! I guess it's appropriate for Shakespeare to end his examination of British royalty with a slightly dull, noncommittal pageant: a foreshadowing of royalty in our own time.
OK, I guess that's enough for now. More 2025 reading to come!
16 January 2026
12 January 2026
09 January 2026
05 January 2026
What I read in 2025 (part 1)
I wrote one of these in 2023 (you can find it here) & figured I would do it again, though I feel as if I've had less time to read this year. I don't know if that's actually true, as I don't really track reading time, but it sure feels that way. Maybe it's because I've developed the habit (or this tendency has worsened) of starting a book & then reading it only in fits & starts, so it takes much longer to finish than you'd think it would, based on its length. Despite all that, this list will be long, but lots of the items are plays, which are, for obvious reasons, fairly short.
If you read the introduction to the 2023 list, you'll see I lay out the rules (books completed in the year, cover-to-cover, even if I started them earlier) & I mention some reading I do every morning: one chapter of the King James translation of the Bible & one poem by Emily Dickinson. I am now up to the epistles in the Bible, so nearing the end of the cover-to-cover read-through; when I finish, I might go back to hopping among the books, or maybe I'll just circle back to the beginning. I'm around poem #1500 for Dickinson, as since the edition I use contains 1,775 poems, I will finish it this year, at which point I will probably just go back to the beginning & start over. But maybe this time I'll read two or even three poems a day; time is running shorter for all of us. In 2023 I also mentioned reading a few pages of Finnegans Wake each day. After I went through it a few times, I decide to switch things up & moved on to Gertrude Stein: a few pages a day, two to six, usually. Those books will appear on this list, or at least some of them will, the ones I finished.
I'm also doing a simultaneous read of 13 different translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses, but I should probably do a separate entry on that. As you can imagine, that takes a while, & it's not something you'd want to slam through anyway.
There will be a lot of Shakespeare on this list, as I re-read his complete works this year. I read him regularly, as I have for decades, but this is the first time I read everything in a row, one thing after another. I came close in a college course, a two-quarter Shakespeare survey (taught by Janet Adelman at Cal) in which we read all the plays (except for the Merry Wives of Windsor, which she, like many lovers of Falstaff, disliked, as in it he is a buffoon & a gull & not the mighty character from the Henry IV plays) so she told us we could read it over the break if we wanted to but she wouldn't discuss it – of course I did read it over the break). But for that course we didn't read the sonnets or the narrative poems. Occasionally I will read all the history plays in a row. But last January I had picked up Macbeth again to read on BART. I always have a separate BART book; for a while, back when I worked in offices & went to many, many live performances, I did most of my reading on BART. But it's gotten increasingly difficult to read on BART, mostly because of device-related noise. People are, as we all know, idiots, & I do not understand why someone would think an entire car on a train should have to listen to whatever nonsense they're listening to (people, headphones exist!). But there it is. (Yes, I use earplugs, but they don't quite get the job done.) So I'm looking for something that fits easily into my satchel & that can be interrupted (I've read the plays so many times, yes I know that makes me sound unbearable, but I can pick them up & put them down at any point & not be lost). So I had Macbeth & thought, sure, let's just keep going. For years I read through the complete works, beginning, as I had the first time around, with Twelfth Night & ending with Hamlet (always smart to keep something excellent in reserve for the end). Eventually I realized / decided that I didn't need to read every play every time; I could read King Lear three times & read Merry Wives maybe once (I don't hate it, but it's not really a favorite). So there were a few I hadn't read in quite a while, until last year. But this year is already passing, so let's get to it:
Macbeth
Shakespeare
Really struck this time by the bird imagery; still working out the way it's used. I think I re-watched Throne of Blood in conjunction with this. I should post movie updates as well.
Walden
Henry David Thoreau
I had started re-reading this a couple of years earlier. I read it slowly, with long gaps, which is a good way to read this book in particular (though it's also increasingly the way I read everything). I had read it in college, for an American literature course. I was fascinated then by the reactions when people saw me carrying it around: ten years earlier it had been a touchstone book, but when I read it (in the late 1970s) every person said, Oh, I had to read that in high school, & I hated it. I could image their idealistic high school English teachers, assigning the significant books of their generation, to an ensuing generation that wasn't having it. Thoreau is always going to be thorny, I think, & controversial; I need to read more of him. A few years ago the New Yorker ran an article attacking him by a woman whose name I can't remember. It seemed to me she missed his point(s) completely. I remember she went on about how he doesn't give the exact depth of some body of water. In that American lit class, we had an entire lecture on how he doesn't give us the exact depth, & what that means. In short, she was a journalist & Thoreau was a poet & philosopher & she just didn't get him.
Timon of Athens
Shakespeare
This one has actually been staged a few times recently, which is interesting. This play, with its heedless millionaire turned misanthrope, seems to hit the current world in a suggestive way (I saw a staging in which Timon was, though I dislike this term, a tech bro – provocative, especially as I'd always pictures Timon as an older man, possibly influenced by the Milton Glaser cover for my Signet Classic Shakespeare edition). When I first read it decades ago, the consensus was that it was unfinished. Recently I looked for more current thinking, &, as collaboration is a big thing now (no more solitary genius expressing his vision!) Timon is presented as a co-written work. But that still doesn't explain some of the loose ends, like why Alcibiades makes a long speech begging for mercy for someone we don't know anything about, or why the amount of money Timon needs keeps changing.
Within a Budding Grove
Marcel Proust
I re-read Swann's Way at the end of 2024, but I'm being a purist & this list is only 2025. I re-read Proust about every 10 years (it was a bit over that this time). I've been doing this since the series was known by the evocative but less accurate title Remembrance of Things Past. It's one of the central books of my life. But as with stepping into rivers, you never read the same book twice. I was struck this time by how comical much of Proust is, but often in a very awkward way that maybe struck me when I was younger as almost too embarrassing to be funny. And of course one point of the novel is the shifting in perception: characters change throughout the book, & then they change in how we react to them. When I decided to re-read, I briefly considered picking up one of the newer translations, but I decided to stick with the Moncrieff, as revised by Kilmartin & Enright. It is one of the classic translations, & I already had all the volumes,, in lovely hardback Modern Library editions. But there were a few things (Britishisms, phrasing that's a bit outdated) that made me think I should explore some of the other translations, next time around.
Much Ado About Nothing
Shakespeare
I have to confess that I have increasingly complicated feelings about this play. There's something a bit desperate about the word play between Beatrice & Benedick: have you ever been in a relationship / friendship where you were always supposed to be "on", always "witty"? It can be grating & ultimately exhausting. As Shaw pointed out, much of what B & B say to each other is not particularly clever (in fact, much of it is downright rude); it's the phrasing that makes it magic. Of course breaking out of that endless "wit trap", or trying to, is what the play is about. Claudio is a fine example of one of Shakespeare's young men who is a romantic hero, officially, but not a particularly nice or admirable person. Years ago a friend of mine was understudying the part & he asked me about one of Claudio's lines: why does he ask if Hero is the only child? I pointed out that if Hero is the only child (meaning, there is no male heir), then her husband would inherit her father's estate entirely. Charming fellow! This play is quite popular now. I wonder if it's because of the Branagh film (which I had mixed feelings about), or is it just hitting the zeitgeist in some other way?
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Shakespeare
Fabulous in every sense.
The Merchant of Venice
Shakespeare
Another play made more complicated by subsequent history. It's a mark of Shakespeare's genius as a playwright that though Shylock remains basically villainous, you can't help but sympathize with him. He's complicated (contrast that with Marlowe's Barabbas from the Jew of Malta, which will show up later on this list, who wins us over basically because of his zest in doing evil, but who lacks the emotional complications of Shylock – his love for his late wife Leah, not to mention his complicated emotions for his daughter & his ducats – but also his sophisticated justification for revenge in the famous "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech). Of course, Shylock sort of swamps the rest of the play, which has many lovely moments (see Berlioz's borrowing in Les Troyens's Nuit d'ivresse of the Act 5 flirtations between Jessica & Lorenzo). Interesting that the Victorians looked on it as a romantic comedy, & for us it's more of a problem play: but of course we live in a post-Shoah world.
Lucy Church Amiably
Gertrude Stein
So Gertrude Stein is making her first appearance. This book has the lovely subtitle "A Novel of Romantic beauty and nature and which Looks Like an Engraving" & that's pretty much it. I know Stein drives a lot of people crazy. My theory is that if you connect with her rhythms on a deep level (& apparently I do), you will love her. Otherwise, maybe not your cup of tea.
The Guermantes Way
Marcel Proust
Volume 3, in which the narrator explores high society. There are some reminders in these novels (the discussion, for instance, of "servants" who started calling themselves "employees") that this is all taking place in a very different world. The high society here, based on an aristocratic descent that is completely alien to an American, for whom money, inherited or not, is the main dividing line, is interesting exactly because it's so foreign. I can understand the romance of someone descended from Genevieve of Brabant; it's historical poetry, a glowing link to a golden past, though of course the actual people are . . .well, people.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Shakespeare
Quite a charming play, though, as is often noted, overshadowed by the later, greater romantic comedies.
The Wife of Bath: A Biography
Marion Turner
Fascinating & engaging history of the sources & offspring of Chaucer's celebrated Wife of Bath (including the intriguing thought that she was one of the sources for Falstaff).
Julius Caesar
Shakespeare
This used to be taught in American high schools, long ago, to show that "Shaespeare approved of democracy" (!!!!!) (& also the verse is not too knotty); it should have been taught as a perfect example of Shakespeare's technique, because no matter what you think of anyone in this play & his or her actions, the playwright forces you to confront another perspective.
OK, that's Part 1.
Museum Monday 2026/1
detail of Hashi-Benkei (Benkei on the Bridge), a woodblock print by Tsukioka Kogyo from the series One Hundred plays of the Noh Theater (Nogaku kyakuban), seen at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
02 January 2026
Friday Photo 2026/1
seagull on a lamp overlooking Lake Merritt, from the terrace of the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland
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