Sometimes when I ask people how they are they respond, "Can't complain" & I tell them that sure they can, if they'd just put a little effort into it. There's a lot to complain about in life! I was going to go off on certain subjects but decided that they can wait because this is July, & I have to complain about my least favorite holiday, the Fourth of July, or, as I usually refer to it, "the goddamn Fourth of motherfucking July". A relative of mine told me he loved having his birthday on the Fourth because "you can have barbecue"; I pointed out that you can (& probably should) have barbecue any day. Here's why I hate the Fourth: (1) Explosions (2) Fire Danger (3) Patriotism. (I've never thought a place was special just because I happened to be born in it.) I am of course dreading this year more than ever, given that the nation's 250th anniversary occurs when we have the absolute worst President, the absolute worst Supreme Court, & a Congress that acts like an elderly turtle flipped on its shell, legs flailing helplessly in the air (no offense to the admirable reptile, who is functioning here in a merely metaphorical status). And you know what? Even if a beneficent providence rids us of the President, it can never wipe away the knowledge that he was aided, abetted, enabled, & separated every step of the way by nearly half the population. This whole "representative government" thing doesn't work unless people (1) pay some sort of minimal attention & (2) have some sense (again, however minimal) that we're all in this together. The Berkeley poet Julia Vinograd wrote a poem decades ago titled Against Punk Rock & it reads It is better to light a single candle / Than to praise the darkness (I'm quoting from memory). So in that spirit, let's go out & try to light at least a single candle, as despite the heat & the lengthy summer days we are wandering in darkness.
Theatrical
From 3 to 19 July in John Hinkel Park, Actors Ensemble of Berkeley presents Alice in Wonderland, adapted by Brainerd Duffield from Lewis Carroll's books & directed by Michael Sally; the show is free & though reservations are encouraged (especially for those in wheelchairs or with limited mobility) they are not necessary.
From 3 July to 7 September, the SF Mime Troupe presents WRECKAGE: A Musical Tragicomedy (written by Michael Gene Sullivan, with music & lyrics by Daniel Savio, directed by Lisa Hori-Garcia, & music direction by Daniel Savio & Will Durkee); these free shows play throughout the Bay Area & you can check here for a location convenient to you.
Scabmuggers, The Play: Based on a Labor Organizer’s True Story, written by Yvonne Martinez & directed by Tanika Baptiste, about sexism in the labor movement, plays at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on 7, 14, & 21 July.
Godless: a new cabaret show by Rotimi Agbabiaka, runs at the Presidio Theater from 9 to 19 July; "[b]lending renditions of Broadway, pop, and jazz standards with Greek, African, and contemporary mythology, Godless is a journey through a glittering world of gossiping gods, fabulous muses, and mischievous mortals, all in search of their divine destiny. . . . tells the tale of Dion Damilola Lokinaesha Divine—a lowly nymph who dreams of someday becoming a big-time god on Mount Olympus!"
From 10 July to 7 August, The Marsh Berkeley presents The Bumpy Road Less Traveled, written & performed by Anthony Michael Jefferson & directed by Dylan Russell, about a sudden tragedy that changes what two families thought their lives would be.
The San Francisco Playhouse usually does a long run of a musical for summer, & this year it's Hairspray (book by Mark O’Donnell & Thomas Meehan, music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman, based on the John Waters movie), directed by Bill English, with musical direction by Dave Dobrusky & choreography by Phoenyx Rose, & that runs 10 July through 12 September.
From 11 to 19 July, Berkeley Playhouse presents the Sondheim/Lapine musical Into the Woods, co-directed by Jesse Cortez & Megan McGrath, with music direction by Daniel Alley & choreography by Megan McGrath (this is one of the Playhouse's Spotlight Shows, meaning the performers are in grades 7 - 12).
Night Driver, written & performed by Pearl Ong & directed by David Ford, about a "Hong Kong princess . . . behind the wheel of a San Francisco cab? And how does her very proper mother react?" returns to The Marsh Berkeley from 11 July to 8 August.
The Orpheum presents the tour of Disney's stage musical Beauty and the Beast, & you can be their guest from 14 July through 9 August.
On 20 June & 18 & 25 July at The Marsh San Francisco, you can see The Saddest Night of Musical Entertainment in the History of the World, written & performed by Johnny Lonely & Joshua Raoul Brody & directed by Cliff Mayotte, about a torch singer who thinks "his 'Unhappy Hour' isn’t gloomy enough" while his accompanist "sabotages Johnny’s plans by throwing in happy songs, sharing mindfulness tips and changing minor keys to major ones"; Johnny Lonely is the creation & creature of Brian Lohmann, a"singer-songwriter, actor-improviser".
From 18 July through 16 August, the San Leandro Players present The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie, directed by Miranda Bumstead.
Shotgun Players present Iphigenia in Splott by Gary Owen, a current-day tale inspired by Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides, directed by Michelle Talgarow, & that opens 25 July & runs through 23 August.
Talking
On 28 July at the Calvin Simmons Theater at the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts in Oakland, Samin Nosrat will be in conversation with Alexis Madrigal as part of Forum Live, presented by KQED Live.
Operatic
The Merola Opera Program presents Peter Brook’s La Tragédie de Carmen in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Hume Concert Hall on 9 & 11 July; the show, a "condensed and starker adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen, created by Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carrière, and Marius Constant", will be conducted by Stephanie Rhodes Russell & directed by Mo Zhou. (Merola's other summer opera, Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, also in Hume Concert Hall but on 30 July & 1 August, has already sold out.)
The Lamplighters present Gilbert & Sullivan's gorgeous fairy opera, Iolanthe, with music direction by Jennifer Ashworth & stage direction by Ted Zoldan, at the ODC Theater from 10 to 19 July.
Pocket Opera presents Puccini's La Rondine, with music direction by Mary Chun, stage direction by Elly Lichenstein, with Michelle Allie Drever as Magda & Maxwell Ary as Ruggero, on 17 July at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 19 July at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, & 26 July at the Gunn Theater at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.
Festival Opera presents free Opera in the Park, the opera this time being Donizetti's Elixir of Love, with piano accompaniment by Chun Mei Wilson & Festival Opera Artistic Director Zachary Gordin as director & narrator, & the parks in question are Orinda Community Park on 23 July & Civic Park in Walnut Creek on 26 July.
Philharmonia Baroque performs a semi-staged production Handel's Tolomeo, re d’Egitto, conducted by PBO's new music director, Peter Whelan, & directed (or semi-staged) by James Darrah Black, with Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen (countertenor, Tolomeo), Lauren Snouffer (soprano, Seleuce), Nicole Heaston (soprano, Elisa), Kangmin Justin Kim (countertenor, Alessandro), & Dashon Burton (bass-baritone, Araspe), & that's 23 July in Herbst Theater in San Francisco & 24 July in First Congregational in Berkeley (& 26 July at the Caramor Center in Katonah, New York, if you want to be a completist).
On 9 July at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, Kip Cranna presents I Hear America Singing: American Opera in the Mid-20th Century, a talk exploring "American opera from the 1930’s through the 1970s, including the ground-breaking, decidedly American work of influential composers, many of whom were of Jewish background, George Gershwin, Virgil Thomson, Gian Carlo Menotti, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Carlisle Floyd, and Philip Glass".
On 11 July at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, the Wagner Society of Northern California presents composer & game designer David Kanaga speaking on Das Kaliforniagold: California Wagnerisms 1848-2026.
Choral
On 3 July in Calvary Presbyterian in San Francisco, the San Francisco Boys Chorus & the Los Angeles Children's Chorus will give a free concert; the program has not been announced yet.
Vocalists
On 18 July, the San Francisco Symphony presents An Evening with Sutton Foster & Kelli O’Hara; the specific program has not been announced yet beyond singing & story-telling.
Orchestral
On 1 July, Chloé Van Soeterstède leads the San Francisco Symphony in Elfrida Andrée's Overture in D major, Max Bruch's Violin Concerto #1 (with soloist Paul Huang), & the Mendelssohn 5, the "Reformation".
The San Francisco Symphony gives its annual Stern Grove summer concert on 12 July, when Edwin Outwater leads the band in Bernstein's Overture to Candide, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (in Ravel's orchestration), Barbers School for Scandal Overture, & Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue arranged for Banjo & Orchestra (featuring Béla Fleck on banjo).
On 16 - 17 July, Nicolas Ellis leads the San Francisco Symphony in the Forest Murmurs from Wagner's Siegfried (arranged by Zumpe), The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams & the Carmen Fantasy by Franz Waxman (edited by Heifetz) (the two latter pieces feature violinist Geneva Lewis), selections from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, & Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture.
On 23 - 24 July, Steven Reineke leads the San Francisco Symphony in James Bond Forever, a program featuring musical excerpts (some featuring singer Lena Hall) from classic Bond films (this is a musical evening, without film clips).
Instrumental
On 20 July in the Littlefield Concert Hall of Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, Other Minds presents pianist Stephen Siek in Alexander Reinagle: Composing a New Nation, part of OM's Mavericks 250, "our celebration of America’s semiquincentennial"; Siek will perform works by Alexander Reinagle (1750–1809), "the most accomplished pianist of the New World and piano teacher of George Washington’s granddaughter".
Early / Baroque Music
Philharmonia Baroque brings back its morning Coffee Concerts in the Conservatory at One Sansome (right off Market Street); the first concert in this series is 10 July & features members of PBO in Café Fandango: Music from Baroque Spain, a program including two works by Boccherini (the Quintet for Guitar and Strings in E Minor, #7, & the Quintet for Guitar and Strings in D Major, #4, “Fandango”; the series is free & open to the public.
See also Handel's Tolomeo under Operatic.
Modernist / Contemporary Music
The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music takes place in Santa Cruz from 26 July to 9 August with the theme We the Dreamers, examining 250 years of the United States, with a suitably starry line-up, which you can check out here.
Jazz
The Wynton Marsalis Septet plays the SF Jazz Center on 14 - 15 July.
Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber plays the SF Jazz Center from 30 July to 1 August.
Dance
From 3 to 12 July at the Orpheum Theater, you can see Dracula, choreographed by Joel Burke, with an "international cast of alumni from the Mariinsky Theatre, English National Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Queensland Ballet and more", to music by "Bach, Rachmaninov, Mozart, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns and Debussy".
On 18 July at Dance Mission Theater in San Francisco, World Arts West presents the first of three programs on the theme Legacy of Liberation! (the other two programs will be in August & September); this first festival day explores dance films: "We will be joined by Delina Patrice Brooks of Delina Dream Productions who created a four part documentary, Bare Soles Bare Soul, in partnership with Clenched Fist Productions and OLU8 Films. We will also view three short films by Ishami Dance Company: Ancestor Song, Because You're a Woman, and Teele Dharo. Ishami Dance Co-founder Ishika Seth, will join our question and answer session for the films as well. Finally, World Arts West will share a short compilation of archival footage highlighting recently digitized as part of our Multicultural Archiving Project (MAP)".
From 30 July to 2 August, ODC/Dance presents a Summer Sampler, featuring a revival of KT Nelson’s Nothing's Gonna Make Sense (Reflections on Grief), a world premiere by Mia J Chong, & a world premiere by Guest Choreographer Catherine Galasso: Unreliable Narrator, "drawn from the lives and artistry of ODC’s founding women, Brenda Way, Kimi Okada and KT Nelson".
Mostly Museums
Nengi Omuku: The Gathering, the first solo museum exhibit in the USA for the Nigerian painter, opens at the de Young on 27 June & continues through May of next year.
Graciela Iturbide: Between Two Worlds, a retrospective of the Mexican photographer's work that spans over 50 years, opens at SFMOMA on 11 July & runs through 29 November.
The Minnesota Street Project Foundation presents The 2026 San Francisco Art Book Fair from 23 to 26 July at 1150 25th Street / 1275 Minnesota Street / 1201 Minnesota Street in San Francisco (all these locations are pretty much right next to each other, & easily accessible on MUNI).
You have until 26 July to see the lovely Monet and Venice show at the de Young; it is, not surprisingly, very popular, so if you haven't been don't wait until the last minute, when it's sure to be unpleasantly crowded.
You have until 27 July to see the fascinating installations of Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries at the Asian Art Museum.
Cinematic
On 1 July at the Roxie, you can attend ZYZZYVA Movie Night with Ingrid Rojas Contreras, in which a writer (this time it's T Kira Māhealani Madden, author of Whidbey) selects a movie to discuss & watch (this time it's Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train); a Q&A with Madden follows the film, & there will be a "Book signing and a chance to shop T Kira Madden’s recommended reading list (courtesy of Dog Eared Books) . . . both before and after the show".
Here are the film series launching at the PFA portion of BAM/PFA this month: starting 2 July, we have Some Nostalgic Place: The Films of Isao Takahata, covering the long career of the Studio Ghibli co-founder (whose works include Grave of the Fireflies & The Tale of The Princess Kaguya; & from 9 to 11 July, you can hear Film Preservationist Ross Lipman in Person, as he discusses his archiving & preservation work, along with screenings of several films he's been involved with.
The Orinda Theater has a couple of Disney events this month: on 4 July, you can see a newly restored print of The Sword in the Stone from 1963, an animated take on the King Arthur origin story, & on 18 July you can see One Hundred and One Dalmatians with Special Guest Mimi Gibson, the voice of Lucky (the second movie on the bill is Houseboat, with Gibson, Cary Grant, & Sophia Loren). Yes, I always root for Cruella de Ville. Not a dog person! Sue me.
On 7 July at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, Dave Radlauer will present Star Spangled Song & Dance of WWII, a program featuring "wartime movie clips of morale-boosting lively song and dance routines by tap dancers Eleanor Powell, Stump Jones, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Bugs Bunny".
At the Roxie from 8 to 18 July, The Fraenkel Gallery presents the Fraenkel Film Festival, "an annual cinema series curated entirely by visual artists"; there is a terrific line-up of films, ranging from Princess Mononoke to The Rules of the Game; you can find the full schedule here.
The San Francisco Symphony will provide live musical accompaniment to the 1961 West Side Story on 9 - 10 July in Davies Hall.
On 12 July at the Orinda Theater, as part of their Wide Screen Roadshow series, you can see El Cid, with Charlton Heston & Sophia Loren.
The 46th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival runs 16 July to 2 August in a variety of venues; you can find the Festival schedule here.
On 17 July at the Paramount, you can see the 1920 Mark of Zorro, directed by Fred Niblo & starring Douglas Fairbanks, with live musical accompaniment by Mark Herman; the film is preceded by an organ concert on the Mighty Wurlitzer, classic cartoons & trailers, & a "Dec-O-Win game with prize giveaway".
On 24 July at the Paramount, you can see The Maltese Falcon, directed by John Huston & starring Humphrey Bogart & Mary Astor; as is usual with the Paramount Movie Classics series (see Mark of Zorro above), the film is preceded by an organ concert on the Mighty Wurlitzer, classic cartoons & trailers, & a "Dec-O-Win game with prize giveaway".
On 25 - 26 July, the San Francisco Symphony provides live musical accompaniment to Matilda; David Newman conducts his score & director Danny DeVito acts as host & narrator.
On 26 July at the Orinda Theater, you can see Suddenly, Last Summer, with Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, & Katharine Hepburn, based on a particularly lurid Tennessee Williams play.
The BLUSH San Francisco Porn Film Festival, "a celebration of the Bay Area’s adult film history . . . with a focus on experimental arthouse, raunch comedy, educational documentaries, and explicit storytelling", will be at the Roxie on 31 July & 1 August.
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