Page 47 - Berkeley Rep News Today

NAATCO, today announced that the company has commissioned five Asian American Playwrights, all women, to write monologues for characters no younger than 60-years-old. Each monologue will be at least 30 minutes long, and all five will be performed together as a piece entitled Out of Time. The playwrights, Asian American women, are Jaclyn Backhaus, Samantha Chanse, Mia Chung, Naomi Iizuka, and Anna Moench. The idea was conceived and will be directed by Les Waters for NAATCO. NAATCO will develop t...

Theaters hit the one-year anniversary of shutdown. How are artists keeping afloat? Read full article Oops! How are artists keeping afloat? Clockwise from top left: Lars Jan, Richard Maxwell, Culture Clash, Daniel Fish, Annie Dorsen and Dael Orlandersmith. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times; Mike Nagle / For The Times; Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times; Tei Blow; Nagle; Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) No sector of the performing arts has been unscathed by the COVID-19 pandemic. But Ive been espec...

Print No sector of the performing arts has been unscathed by the COVID-19 pandemic. But I’ve been especially concerned about the plight of theater stalwarts, those pioneers and purists who haven’t been biding their time in rehearsal rooms, waiting for their Netflix closeups. For directors, playwrights and performance artists whose canvas is the three-dimensional stage, the situation has been unimaginably dire. How have they been getting by, creatively and financially? I feared tales of Dic...

Mitzi Trachtenberg. Photo: Dennis Letbetter One year ago (Feb. 8, 2020), right before the world started spinning backward, Mitzi Trachtenberg (née Tyrnauer) took her last breath surrounded by her children, their partners and many of her grandchildren. She was 90. “Mitz,” always one for drama and good lighting, passed away with a full moon illuminating a wildly windy Bay Area night. Her loved ones imagined that they’d have a memorial service for her and publish her obit but events intrude...

Chronicle Staff February 22, 2021Updated: February 24, 2021, 7:19 am Takács Quartet. Photo: Courtesy Takács Quartet The Chronicle’s guide to notable arts and entertainment happenings in the Bay Area. With new personnel, the Takács Quartet kicks off spring season at Cal Performances The Takács Quartet keeps evolving as the membership shifts and turns over, but the fundamental qualities of this invaluable ensemble — a combination of worldly-wise intensity and expressive fer...

Many businesses were forced to shutter because of the pandemic-related lockdown — temporarily or permanently. Photo: Tracey Taylor Since March 17, the pandemic and shelter-in-place orders have transformed the face of Berkeley. Hotels and theaters have been largely closed. Restaurants have pivoted to mostly take-out dining with parklets springing up for the times when outdoor dining has been allowed. The job market has been devastated by the abrupt closure of many of Berkeley’s businesses. A...

News, reviews, and event information for 6th Street Playhouse’s ‘Crawfish: We, the Invisible’ at Online event on Feb 26, 2021, on Datebook from the The San Francisco Chronicle.

There’s no shortage of things that Richard Montoya loves about Bay Area culture — the Mission District, Carlos Santana, the Golden State Warriors. Perhaps most striking for Montoya is the East Bay’s artistic forebears: poets like Joaquin Miller, Diane de Prima and Montoya’s father José Montoya, whose works are informed by their time in Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley. “It’s really those golden gates that kick us off into a rich California legacy that has to do with the West, ou...

Shotgun Players Announces 30th Anniversary Season, Including the Tony-Winning Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 Hopefully, if all continues on a positive path with the pandemic, each week ahead will come with small announcements about the Bay Area arts and culture scenes slowly coming back to life. This week, we learn that Berkeleys Shotgun Players is alive and well, and theyre planning an ambitious 30th anniversary season that kicks off with four shows meant to bridge the transition...

In the first episode of “Place/Settings,” Berkeley Rep’s artistic director Johanna Pfaelzer asks us if we’ve ever spent time in an empty theater. “It feels alive,” she says. “There’s palpable motion in the stillness.” Berkeley’s theaters, including Berkeley Rep, remain empty for the time being as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to circulate; the same goes for many other spaces where Berkeley residents might otherwise gather for a shared experience. But the participating writ...