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Top Torn Tickets of 2020

Harry Duke

Jan 13, 2021

’Tis the time for critics of all ilks to release their “end of year” lists. For almost 20 years, this publication has presented a “Top Torn Tickets” list featuring the year’s best North Bay theatrical productions.

Those years, however, had the advantage of having an entire calendar year’s worth of shows to consider. With the pandemic-necessitated shut-downs and closures initiated in mid-March, there were but a fraction of shows produced live in 2020 upon which to look back.

But look back I did, and I want to give the fine work of local theater artists their due. Adhering to the belief that that it’s “quality, not quantity”, here—in alphabetical order—is my truncated list of the best and/or most interesting stage work done in the North Bay in the past year:

Enchanted April–Sonoma Arts Live The North Bay is gifted with many fine theatrical designers, but it’s rare for a stage design to receive its own applause. Such was the case when the curtain opened on ACT II of this production to reveal Carl Jordan’s breathtaking scenic and lighting design for an Italian villa. Bravo!

Five Course Love–Lucky Penny Productions Short, sweet and incredibly silly, this is the kind of show we are all going to desperately need when we’re past this current mess.

Ghosts of Bogotá–Alter Theater Ghosts haunted a vacant San Rafael storefront in this very interesting production that was both gut-busting and gut-wrenching.

Mary’s Wedding–Main Stage West This incredibly effective, dream-like piece was part memory play, part fantasy and part Ken Burns PBS documentary-influenced World War I drama.

Ripcord–Cinnabar Theater A terrific cast brought the funny to this look at a couple of mis-matched Senior Center roommates.

Silent Sky–Ross Valley Players This well-mounted production of Lauren Gunderson’s look at America’s first female astronomers was a healthy reminder that there was a time in this country when the pursuit of truth through science was something to be respected.

The Wolves–Raven Players Whenever this company goes “outside the box” (and converts their cavernous theater into a black box), they do really interesting work. A fine, young ensemble brought the sting of accuracy to the conversations among the members of a girls’ soccer team.

With no “opening” date for theaters in sight, many local companies have turned to streaming while others just continue to hold their breath. Here’s to 2021 giving us all the chance to gather safely and breathe again.

Green Music Center Announces Virtual Season of Shows

Charlie Swanson

Jan 12, 2021

Green Music Center Announces Virtual Season of Shows

The Green Music Center–Sonoma State University’s live music venue and educational complex made up of Weill Hall, Schroeder Hall and more–is accustomed to packing the halls with concerts and various live events featuring culturally significant musicians and other top-tier performers.

The last several months have been quiet ones at the Green Music Center, as the Covid-19 pandemic closed the halls and classrooms in March of 2020. After missing the summer season due to the extended social-distancing orders, the center transformed their 2020 fall season into an online experience dubbed ‘The Green Room.’

The venue’s green rooms, where performers hang out backstage, inspired the virtual program of events. Now, ‘The Green Room’ returns for a spring 2021 season featuring more performances and conversations with artists streaming online, beginning this month.

The spring season starts with the renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Septet featuring trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis on Saturday, Jan. 30. The ensemble presents “The Democracy! Suite,” a new work written by Marsalis during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis as a response to the political, social and economic struggles facing the United States.

Following that, ‘The Green Room’ virtually hosts performances by groups ranging from San Francisco classical foursome Kronos Quartet to hip-hop ambassadors Alphabet Rockers.

Kronos Quarter continues its “50 for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire,” a project commissioning 50 new works for string quartet composed equally by women and men, with a virtual concert on Feb. 20.

Alphabet Rockers share their mission of shaping a more equitable world by giving youth a way to express themselves positively through hip-hop in a family-friendly show on Feb. 27.

Other exciting entertainers virtually visiting ‘The Green Room’ include Los Angeles-based band Quetzal, who mix musical styles such as R&B and Chicano rock when they perform online March 11; and Clear Creek Creative, who appear in a discussion of their environmentally, culturally and spiritually-conscious theatrical work, “Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man,” on April 1.

The spring offerings also include two new performances from “Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Front Row: National.” The mouthful of a series is curated by Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center co-artistic directors David Finckel and Wu Han, to celebrate chamber music with the public. First, the Calidore String Quartet performs virtually on Feb. 6. Next, musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center perform Bach’s iconic “Brandenburg Concertos” on April 3.

In addition to these online concerts, ‘The Green Room’ online spring programming also features the return of Michael Mwenso’s Black Music Series, featuring culturally significant discussions with a diverse group of artists.

Last fall, Mwenso and special guests delved into a wide range of topics surrounding the Black experience though discussion, historical recordings, and performance.

Now, the acclaimed musician and self-described cultural guide is back for two more installments of the series. On Feb. 4, Mwenso connects how making music in his group Mwenso & The Shakes helped shed light on his own experiences. On April, 8, Mwenso leads a roundtable talk with prominent artists Vuyo Sotashe and Jules Latimer on the artist perspective of the LGBTQ+ experience in America.

Tickets for The Green Room’s spring 2021 season of shows opens to the public on Jan. 19. $10 for individual performances; $70 for the full season. Sonoma State students are Free. Green Music Center donors and subscribers to the Spring 2021 Season will receive access to one additional performance on March 6. Visit gmc.sonoma.edu for more details.

‘Immersive Van Gogh’ Exhibit Will Let You Step Inside the Art

Charlie Swanson

Jan 11, 2021

‘Immersive Van Gogh’ Exhibit Will Let You Step Inside the Art

In the 1990 film Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, an art student is transported to within a painting by Vincent van Gogh. There, he meets the famous Dutch artist (as played by Martin Scorsese). Van Gogh relates the story of how he lost his ear before the student wanders through a series of van Gogh’s most famous and most visually-striking Post-Impressionist landscape paintings.

Soon, Bay Area art lovers will have the chance to experience that same enchanting art walk when the “Immersive Van Gogh” exhibit takes over San Francisco’s SVN West. The show features several massive art projections that will let audiences see Vincent van Gogh’s works from the inside-out.

Following several weeks of advance ticket sales, event organizers Lighthouse Immersive recently announced that “Immersive Van Gogh” will open for an extended run on March 18 and be available to view through September 6, 2021.

“The reception we have received from San Francisco Bay Area ticket buyers has been enthusiastic and welcoming,” Lighthouse Immersive co-producer Corey Ross says in a statement. “Despite the setbacks and challenges of Covid-19 this past year, one thing is clear—the arts will be coming back stronger than ever in 2021. We look forward to welcoming audiences through our doors beginning in March.”

Utilizing the SVN West’s massive size, the show invites visitors to seemingly step inside some of van Gogh’s masterpieces. The works on display include “Starry Night,” “Sunflowers,” and “The Bedroom.”

Admissions will be limited and in line with the City and County of San Francisco’s capacity guidelines. There will be touchless ticket-taking and temperature checks upon arrival. Hand sanitizer stations and social distancing markers will be prominent throughout the venue. Finally, digitally–projected social distancing circles on the gallery floors to ensure appropriate spacing. All guests must wear a face covering at all times during their visit to SVN West.

The paintings will be projected as how van Gogh described the way he first saw them: actively moving landscapes turned into sharp yet sweeping brushstrokes. The exhibit’s creative director and Italian film producer Massimiliano Siccardi worked with art director Vittorio Guidotti to bring these works to moving life.

In addition, Italian multimedia composer Luca Longobardi provides a score that combines experimental electronic music with ethereal piano. Audiences will see a new view of the artworks and gain new insight into van Gogh’s emotional and chaotic inner consciousness through the mixture of art, light, music and movement.

“Immersive Van Gogh” first debuted in Toronto in July 2020, and will also be shown in Chicago in February 2021. Tickets for all dates of this West Coast premiere go on sale Saturday, Jan. 16. $24.99-$39.99 and up. vangoghsf.com.

Newsom Unveils State Budget Proposal With Billions for Education, Covid-19

Eli Walsh, Bay City News Service

Jan 11, 2021

Newsom Unveils State Budget Proposal With Billions for Education, Covid-19

Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled his proposed budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year Friday, touting record investments in education and a $15 billion budget surplus in spite of the economic uncertainty wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.

The $227 billion proposed budget, with a $164.5 billion general fund, represents a stark difference in the state’s financial outlook from last year, when plummeting sales, personal income and corporate tax revenue during the pandemic’s early days resulted in a $54 billion budget deficit.

According to Keely Bosler, the state’s Director of Finance, the state received more revenue than expected over the last year after misjudging the depth of the pandemic-induced recession and that the stock market would maintain its strength.

“Not an easy journey,” Newsom said Friday about the process of developing the proposal. “A challenge the likes of which we’ve never experienced in such a contracted period of time. Numbers changed but our values did not.”

Newsom said his focus when drafting the budget centered on getting state residents vaccinated against the virus as quickly as possible while spurring the state’s economic recovery and reopening schools across the state.

The budget includes $85.8 billion for the state’s schools, the largest investment in education in the state’s history, according to Newsom.

The proposed funding would allow the state to avoid making permanent education cuts or layoffs while recruiting and training new teachers, keeping college and university tuition and fees at current levels and ensuring all school staff and students have access to coronavirus testing and vaccination in the coming months.

At the end of December, Newsom announced that the state would invest some $2 billion in reopening schools in February for students in transitional kindergarten through second grade and progressing into higher grades later into the spring.

While schools in 41 counties across the state were holding in-person classes to some extent, as of November, Newsom said state officials aim to use the $2 billion and incentives for additional resource allocation to resume in-person classes statewide.

Newsom added that officials wouldn’t shy away from taking a more heavy-handed approach with school districts that have been more hesitant to reopen in the coming months.

Superintendents from seven of the state’s largest school districts, including those in San Francisco and Oakland, expressed such hesitation earlier this week in a letter to Newsom, suggesting that the $2 billion plan would be implemented inequitably and included vague markers for reopening such as what constitutes a “safe school environment.”

“I think this budget reflects the vast majority of their concerns,” Newsom said Friday about the letter, adding “we share the same goal for safe reopening of in-person education.”

The proposed education budget also includes funding for mental health services for students, extending when schools are in session to make up for the learning lost as result of the pandemic and the development of open-sourced textbooks as a way of disrupting “the racket that is textbooks in this country,” Newsom said.

The budget would utilize $6.7 billion in federal education funding as part of its allocation to the state’s schools.

California State University Chancellor Joseph Castro said the budget “provides a welcome reinvestment in the California State University and demonstrates his continued belief in the power of public higher education in developing future leaders of our state and improving the lives of the residents of California.”

The California Faculty Association, which represents staff at all 23 CSU campuses, described its reaction to the proposal as “encouraged.”

“This proposal is the opening move in the budget process that includes a May revise and final approval in June,” the CFA said in a statement. “CFA looks forward to working with the California state legislature and Gov. Newsom over the next several months to secure necessary funding to enable us to best serve CSU students.”

Outside of education, the proposed budget includes $4.4 billion to continue the state’s expansion of coronavirus testing, contact tracing and vaccination efforts.

Newsom lamented that California has lagged behind many other states in its coronavirus vaccination efforts, arguing that it is somewhat out of his control and that the state itself has not received any vaccine doses, which are being distributed directly to local health jurisdictions and health care systems.

State officials have set a goal of administering 100 million vaccines by the end of next week, according to Newsom, who noted roughly 2 million vaccine doses have been received in the state as of Thursday.

“The predicate in terms of our focus on a budget is the reality of getting out of the freezers, and administering into peoples’ arms, these vaccines,” Newsom said. “We must do that in order to safely reopen, for in-person instruction, our schools; to reopen our small businesses as well as businesses large and small all across the state of California.”

Newsom said he has asked the state legislature to pass an immediate funding package by the end of the month to allocate funding for reopening schools, issuing grants and fee waivers to small businesses and extending the state’s moratorium on evictions, which expires Jan. 31.

Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, who authored the eviction moratorium bill last year, lauded Newsom for his proposal, including the $1.75 billion allocated to sheltering the state’s unhoused residents long-term.

“Despite an ongoing pandemic and difficult economic circumstances, Governor Newsom has used this budget to make wise investments and safeguard our social safety net,” Chiu said, adding “while no budget is perfect, this proposal is good news for California.”

The immediate funding package would also include $600 stimulus payments to 2019 taxpayers who received an earned income tax credit from the state and 2020 taxpayers who have Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers.

Residents with an annual income of $30,000 or less are eligible for the tax credit, while ITIN taxpayers include people like undocumented residents who were not eligible for federal stimulus payments.

California Republican Party Chair Jessica Millan Patterson suggested Newsom should have also used the state’s one-time surplus to support residents who have been hit hard in their wallet by the pandemic.

“His shutdowns and lack of leadership in handling COVID-19 has put many Californians in dire situations – foreclosures, evictions, isolation from family and friends and a lost academic year for millions of school children,” Millan Patterson said in a statement.

Bay Area leaders praised Newsom’s budget for investing in the state rather than making dramatic cuts amid the pandemic.

“In addition to all the challenges we have been facing for years, right now in this moment, our workers, families, and young people are in desperate need of immediate relief,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said. “By proposing direct investments to working people, small businesses, and our schools, the governor is doing just that.”

“Even amid this pandemic, homelessness will persist as the lasting crisis of our generation,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said. “Mayors throughout the state urged Governor Newsom to remain steadfast in his commitment to housing solutions, and he stepped up.”

“This budget wisely commits to assistance for small businesses, greater support for public health programs, a good working plan to reopen schools, as well as addressing non-COVID related threats like climate change impacts,” state Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, said.

The full budget proposal – which also includes billions in funding for wildfire preparedness, tax credits and loans for businesses and early childhood care – can be found here.

Folk Artist John McCutcheon Virtually Visits the Bay Area for Annual Tour

Charlie Swanson

Jan 8, 2021

Folk Artist John McCutcheon Virtually Visits the Bay Area for Annual Tour

Even though he lives in the city of Smoke Rise, Georgia, veteran folk singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist John McCutcheon is a popular fixture in the Bay Area and throughout California.

That is because McCutcheon annually plays venues like the historic Sebastiani Theatre in Sonoma and the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley as part of a self-described “Left Coast Tour” that he’s taken each January for more than 30 years.

This year, McCutcheon could not make the trip out to California due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. So he’s doing the next best thing, performing online shows that will benefit his usual haunts on consecutive Saturdays, Jan. 9 and Jan. 16.

Each show benefits a number of California venues and organizations that McCutcheon regularly works with. For example, McCutcheon’s January 9 performance benefits the Sebastiani Theatre and the Freight & Salvage as well as KVMR (Nevada City-Grass Valley), Modesto Peace/Life Center (Modesto), and KZFR (Chico). McCutcheon’s performance on Jan. 16 will benefit venues running from Winters, CA, to Bakersfield, CA.

On McCutcheon’s webpage, virtual concertgoers can purchase tickets to the shows through their preferred venue’s link, which will ensure their ticket helps to support that sponsor directly.

“A lot of these presenters have become old friends by now. I want and need them to survive so that can continue our work together on the other side of all this,” McCutcheon says in a statement. “Each presenter gets a unique ticketing URL and sells tickets to ‘their’ audience. They get a cut of the sales that they sold, just as if I were there live. In fact, it’s a better percentage and they don’t even have to turn the lights on.”

The concerts will be broadcast on Mandolin, a new presenting platform that is becoming known for high-quality audio and video production. “We’ve done a couple concerts using this model and they’ve been really successful,” McCutcheon says. “I can’t wait to gather my audiences from California and get them all sitting together for the first time.”

Tickets are available for the virtual concerts at three price points to give the show a “Pay what you can” feel, including a five-dollar ‘unemployed/laid off’ ticket.

“Everyone needs music these days, so we want to keep it affordable,” McCutcheon says.

The prolific musician also promises that he will have plenty of new songs and stories for the upcoming virtual show, as he does each year that he comes to California. In fact, McCutcheon recently released his forty-first album, Cabin Fever: Songs from the Quarantine.

Written over the course of three weeks of self-imposed isolation following an Australian tour in Mid-March, Cabin Fever: Songs from the Quarantine is not even the album that McCutcheon was planning on recording in 2020.

Following his last release, To Everyone In All the World: a Celebration of Pete Seeger, McCutcheon had stockpiled over 30 new songs, but that record went on the shelf once the pandemic-related music and lyrics began pouring out of him while he was in isolation.

“It’s an album that is completely of its time,” McCutcheon said when the album came out this summer. “That is, the subject matter, while not exclusively about Covid-19 and its effects, came out of that milieu. It was recorded in total isolation, mixed in isolation, my graphic designer worked on her part after she put her kids to bed, a remarkably quick turn-around time, and, to top it all off, it’s a pay-what-you-can release.”

Like his upcoming virtual concerts, McCutcheon wanted to make the album accessible to everyone, regardless of finances.

“We’re in this together and we need to look out for one another,” McCutcheon says. “It’s the only way, in the music business or in “real life”, that we’re going to make it.”

John McCutcheon performs his Virtual Left Coast Tour for Northern California venues on Saturday, Jan. 9 and Saturday, Jan. 16. Both shows are at 4pm. $5-$30. Get tickets at Folkmusic.com.

Bay Area Reps Call on Pence to Invoke 25th Amendment Against Trump

Bay City News Service

Jan 7, 2021

Bay Area Reps Call on Pence to Invoke 25th Amendment Against Trump

Bay Area members of Congress who had to flee from the House chambers Wednesday as supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., are among those calling for Vice President Mike Pence to gather Trump’s cabinet in order to invoke the 25th Amendment and deem the president unfit for the office.

Trump gave a speech earlier Wednesday, falsely claiming he won the election and calling for his supporters to march to the Capitol as Congress was holding hearings on the certification of the Electoral College vote following November’s election of former Vice President Joe Biden as president over Trump.

During the insurrection, one woman died in a shooting by police inside the Capitol building and three other people died in the area around the Capitol grounds as a result of unspecified medical emergencies, according to local police. At least 52 people were arrested, and videos went viral on social media of people ransacking congressional offices, including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo/San Francisco, and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, both called for the invoking of the 25th Amendment, which states that the vice president “and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments” can write to Congress to say the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

The vice president, in that event, would assume the powers of the presidency, but the president could also write to Congress that no inability exists, and would then resume the powers. The decision would ultimately go to Congress to decide, with two-thirds votes needed in both the Senate and House to remove the president.

Speier wrote on Twitter, “Trump has given us no choice. The 25th Amendment must be invoked NOW. We need to immediately wrest control of the country from him. He is not the commander (in) chief of the US. He is commander (in) chief of the Trump mob & proud boys. @VP Pence must step up & defend our democracy.”

Thompson, also calling for invoking the 25th Amendment, wrote, “On this dark day for our nation, we need to stand up and end this immediately. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake.”

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Stockton, and other members of Congress have joined that call, but a local politics professor said such an action is unlikely at this point.

Jeremiah Garretson, associate professor of political science specializing in political psychology and media at California State University East Bay, said given that the president’s cabinet is stacked with loyalists who are unlikely to vote to remove him and that enough Republican members of Congress also support the president, the 25th Amendment seems like a long shot to remove Trump ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of Biden.

Garretson said he unfortunately wasn’t surprised by the storming of the Capitol given that the president’s rhetoric about election fraud — which earned Trump temporary suspensions Wednesday on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram — has been spread widely on right-wing media and was preceded last year by similar actions at statehouses, including in Michigan over COVID-19 protective measures.

“It just took a few nudges with these people believing that they are trying to restore democracy to get them to act in a way that is completely contrary to democracy itself,” Garretson said.

On Thursday, other members of Congress, including North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, called for Trump to be impeached, whether or not the 25th Amendment is invoked.

“Good. But let’s be clear: impeachment must happen with or without 25th Amendment action. Hard to imagine this monster ever again inflicting his crimes and abuses on our nation as President, but impeachment is necessary to make sure,” Huffman wrote on Twitter Thursday in response to news that Pelosi called on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Additional reporting by Will Carruthers