Arts & Culture :: Culture

No tip for 'Waitress' - San Francisco Playhouse can't save musical's script

No tip for 'Waitress' - San Francisco Playhouse can't save musical's script

  • by Jim Gladstone
  • Dec 3, 2024

"Sugar. Butter. Flour." This three-word refrain rings throughout "Waitress," the musical now being served up as holiday fare at the San Francisco Playhouse. It's not sung sweetly, but with an odd atonality.

Words: Melanie Senn's 'Murray,' a novel based on a true story

Words: Melanie Senn's 'Murray,' a novel based on a true story

  • by Michele Karlsberg
  • Dec 3, 2024

When I first spoke with Melanie Senn about her historical novel, "Murray," it sparked an interest in a nano-second. Who doesn't love a story about a gender-bending historical figure.

Regifting - New reissues from Alison Moyet, Thompson Twins, Elvis Costello & more

Regifting - New reissues from Alison Moyet, Thompson Twins, Elvis Costello & more

  • by Gregg Shapiro
  • Dec 3, 2024

People who dig 1980s music are often divided into two groups: those that lived through the period and are feeling nostalgic, and those who missed it the first time around and want to experience it for themselves. New reissues should please both.

Fall/Winter books; Cher, Edmund White, DeSimone & more

Fall/Winter books; Cher, Edmund White, DeSimone & more

  • by Jim Piechota
  • Dec 3, 2024

With wetter weather and cooler temperatures comes more opportunities to amuse ourselves indoors. This selection of queer books in a few different genres will tempt your soul in books by Alan Hollinghurst, Cher, Edmund White, Lewis DeSimone and more.

Sandra Bernhard's Easy Listening Tour: comic legend promises a musical journey

Sandra Bernhard's Easy Listening Tour: comic legend promises a musical journey

  • by David-Elijah Nahmod
  • Dec 2, 2024

On December 10, renaissance woman Sandra Bernhard will perform at the Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley. With her "Easy Listening Tour," Bernhard invites her audience to join her on a musical journey back in time with her younger self.

Cyndi Lauper's Farewell Tour bops at The Chase Center

Cyndi Lauper's Farewell Tour bops at The Chase Center

  • by Jim Provenzano
  • Nov 27, 2024

It was a concert for the ages as veteran singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper performed her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour on November 26 at the Chase Center in San Francisco.

Pride, no prejudice: Kausar Mohammed co-stars in TheatreWorks' 'Miss Bennet'

Pride, no prejudice: Kausar Mohammed co-stars in TheatreWorks' 'Miss Bennet'

  • by Jim Gladstone
  • Nov 26, 2024

Kausar Mohammed is dreaming of a theatrical Christmas. The queer Pakistani actress, who grew up in San Jose, is thrilled to be playing one of the heroines of the Jane Austen canon, Elizabeth Darcy, in "Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley."

SF Gay Men's Chorus concerts bring in holiday cheer

SF Gay Men's Chorus concerts bring in holiday cheer

  • by John Ferrannini
  • Nov 25, 2024

The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus will welcome all comers to its annual Holiday Spectacular and Home for the Holidays shows this December. The latter show will be held this year for the first time at Davies Symphony Hall.

'Broadway Barbara's Holiday Spectacular' at Feinstein's

'Broadway Barbara's Holiday Spectacular' at Feinstein's

  • by Jim Gladstone
  • Nov 24, 2024

Barbara Dixon, aka Broadway Barbara (aka actress Leah Sprecher) is a has-been/never-been of the Great White Way. She's bringing her "Holiday Spectacular" cabaret show, chock full of Broadway dirty laundry, to Feinstein's at the Nikko on Dec. 5.

Alan Hollinghurst's 'Our Evenings' - A gay odyssey toward happiness complicated by racism

Alan Hollinghurst's 'Our Evenings' - A gay odyssey toward happiness complicated by racism

  • by Brian Bromberger
  • Nov 24, 2024

Probably England's finest prose stylist, in his latest book Alan Hollinghurst has created an elegy, a reminiscence on gay life from the 1960s to the present, but through the lens of class and race as it impacts on art and sexuality.

'The Golden Girls' - popular drag parody moves to the Curran Theatre

'The Golden Girls' - popular drag parody moves to the Curran Theatre

  • by David-Elijah Nahmod
  • Nov 23, 2024

2024 is a big year for "The Golden Girls Live: The Christmas Episodes." The annual drag parody, which began almost two decades ago, will for the first time perform at the Curran Theatre.

Mark Abramson's 'My Gay History' - A time capsule of the Castro's recent past

Mark Abramson's 'My Gay History' - A time capsule of the Castro's recent past

  • by Finbar LaBelle
  • Nov 22, 2024

In his latest book, "My Gay History," Mark Abramson opens a window to a wealth of personal journal entries from 2003 to 2008. The longtime San Francisco author has mastered the art of reflective writing.

'Jaja's African Hair Braiding' - A powerful comedy of community

'Jaja's African Hair Braiding' - A powerful comedy of community

  • by Jim Gladstone
  • Nov 19, 2024

Laughter and tears, insult and injury; motherhood, sisterhood and the lifeblood of a neighborhood is all in a day's work at Jaja's African Hair Braiding, the eponymous Harlem salon of Jocelyn Bioh's piquant microcosmic comedy, now at Berkeley Repertory.

Pilobolus: dance magic - Artistic Director Matt Kent on the company's rebellious legacy

Pilobolus: dance magic - Artistic Director Matt Kent on the company's rebellious legacy

  • by Philip Mayard
  • Nov 19, 2024

Under the leadership of Artistic Directors Matt Kent and Renée Jaworski since 2011, Pilobolus has flourished as one of America's most unique and engaging cultural institutions. The company performs in Berkeley Nov. 30-Dec. 1.