Noise Pop 2015
An annual sonic orgy for those who like their rock indie, edgy and generally non-electronic, Noise Pop has been a San Francisco tradition since 1993. This year’s lineup sprawls across numerous local Bay Area venues, with special emphasis on the historic Swedish American Hall, which the organization has re-opened as its own year-round event base. Live headliners include Canada’s pop classicists the New Pornographers (pictured above), singer-songwriter Dan Deacon, Australian legends the Church, Manitoba’s finest Dan Snaith a.k.a. Caribou, and many, many more. Then there’s the parallel Noise Pop Film Festival, which runs a raucous cinematic gamut from Devo to heavy metal to Spike Jonze’s skateboarding videos. Details and ticket information here.
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Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them
Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit ThemCrowded Fire Theater is opening its new season with a bang. That’s partly because the first play on the schedule is Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them, by A. Rey Pamatmat. It features three kids living on their own and doing pretty well without parental guidance, even if 12-year-old Edith needs to guard the home with a pellet gun. But Crowded Fire has also just announced the hiring of its new artistic director Mina Morita, replacing Marissa Wolf, who left for a theater company in Kansas City. Morita has been an Artistic Associate at Berkeley Rep, helping to found that company’s fertile new play program The Ground Floor. It’s a good sign for this small but ambitious company. Details and ticket information here.
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Dead Man Walking
Dead Man WalkingWhen Jake Heggie’s first full-length opera premiered at SF Opera (where he was then composer-in-residence) 15 years ago, it kicked into overdrive a promising career that has since encompassed several other high-profile operas and song cycles. But Dead Man Walking, its libretto penned by famed playwright Terrence McNally, remains his most popular work. Opera Parallelle’s production represents the music drama’s homecoming after some 40 international productions. Drawn from Sister Jean Preljean’s memoir (also the basis for the Oscar-winning film with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn), it centers on a nun’s campaign to redeem the soul — and stop the execution — of a convicted murderer in Louisiana State Penitentiary. Jennifer Rivera and Michael Mayes sing the lead roles. Details and ticket information here.
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Marion Gray: Within the Light
Marion Gray: Within the LightThe Oakland Museum of California presents Within the Light, a retrospective of Bay Area photographer Marion Gray. Twenty-three photographs are on display, showcasing the artist’s work over a period of four decades — capturing performance art, dance, and installations across the Bay Area and beyond. Subjects include Marina Abramović, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Ann Hamilton, Barbara Hammer, The Harrisons, Joan Jonas, Eiko + Koma, and Sara Shelton Mann, among others. Details and ticket information here.
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Home Street Home
Home Street HomeAlthough Fat Mike made gossip headlines last November by kicking a drunk fan in the face (and then, in apology, letting the fan kick him back), the San Francisco-based leader of long-running punk outfit NOFX has been up to less chaotic pursuits as of late. To wit: the man behind such albums as S&M Airlines and I Heard They Suck Live has written… a Broadway musical? You’d better believe it, punk: Home Street Home makes its world premiere at San Francisco’s Z Space, with collaborators reading like a who’s-who of band members Fat Mike’s Fat Wreck Chords label. Expect irreverence and a gutter-level realism when ‘Home Street Home’ — which you can stream in full here — opens Feb. 20. Details and ticket information here.