For your September delectation, Brazilian model Marcello poses for photographer Steven Underhill . He's a harbinger of the upcoming fall season in the arts!
Angels, 20 years later
So we were visiting SF’s Museum of Performance & Design in the Veterans Building to see Toy Theatres: Worlds in Miniature, a modest exhibit of 21 rare toy theatres dating from the 18th century to the present, drawn from seven different countries. It’s a cute little show, and it reminded Out There to mention an exciting exhibition coming to the MPD this fall. We’ll let the press release set the stage.
"Few plays of the last 50 years have had the staggering worldwide impact of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. In celebration of the play’s 20th anniversary, the MPD will mount More Life! Angels in America at 20, opening this coming Nov. 6.
"Angels in America was commissioned and premiered by SF’s Eureka Theatre Company and produced to mounting acclaim at LA’s Mark Taper Forum and London’s National Theatre. The play burst onto Broadway in 1993, winning multiple Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize. An unlikely blockbuster, the seven-hour epic in two parts (Millennium Approaches and Perestroika ) took audiences on a dizzying journey from New York to Heaven and everywhere in-between, following a group of unforgettable characters as they grappled with AIDS, identity, community, love, death, and transcendence in Reagan-era America.
"Organized by MPD curator of exhibitions Brad Rosenstein, More Life! will immerse visitors in the magical world of the play, tracing it from its earliest development in Kushner’s notebooks to its premiere in SF, from its triumphs in London and on Broadway to the HBO film, the opera, and the brand-new Signature Theatre production in NYC, which begins performances this month. The exhibition boasts original costumes, props, manuscripts, video clips, photos, designs, and other rare memorabilia from key productions of Angels, as well as new audio and video interviews conducted especially for the exhibition with many of the play’s creators and participating artists.
"Playwright Kushner will be present for the exhibition’s gala opening in November, and will participate in a public conversation with curator Rosenstein during the opening weekend. The show’s five-month run will be accompanied many related events, including conversations with artists involved with the play, lectures, screenings, and live performances. Visit the museum online at www.mpdsf.org for more info."
New music
Our ears’ unquenchable thirst for new music has been slaked lately by listening to the new album from inventive jazz pianist Jason Moran, Ten (EMI), playing with Tarus Mateen on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums. Moran both composes and covers, and can take a classic like "Crepuscule with Nellie" by the great Thelonious Monk, and make it something new. He also performs to perfection "To Bob Atel of Paris" by the late great jazz artist Jaki Byard , and works by composers Conlon Nancarrow and Leonard Bernstein (his blues "Big Stuff"). Even given Moran’s postmodern sensibilities, it was pleasantly surprising to hear the honky-tonk refrains of "Nobody" running through the track "Old Babies." We prize our recording of Johnny Cash crooning, "Well, I ain’t never done nothin’ to nobody,/ I ain’t never got nothin’ from nobody, no time./ And until I get something from somebody, sometime,/ I don’t intend to do nothin’ for nobody, no time!" There’s some double, triple and quadruple negatives for you!
SF Symphony’s impeccable timing
There’s nothing but positives attached to the upcoming release of the San Francisco Symphony’s CD of Mahler’s Songs with Orchestra (Sept. 14). Music director Michael Tilson Thomas and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham perform Ruckert-Lieder; the SFS and baritone Thomas Hampson perform Songs of a Wayfarer; and the album closes out the Symphony’s multiple award-winning Mahler recording cycle, just in time for the 150th anniversary of his birth. How’s that for impeccable timing?
PS. Congrats go to erstwhile SF artist Scooter LaForge , now residing in the East Village, who was chosen as the exclusive artist to design the Castro Street Fair Logo and sell limited edition T-shirts from his collection this October.
PPS. Correction: Last week’s story "SF Fringe Fest: a gay riot" carried an incorrect photo credit for the photo of Ryan Hayes (Boys Together Clinging), which should have been credited to Joshua Smith. We regret the error.