From Oakland Museum’s vibrant Day of the Dead bash to plays about Emojis and “Clue” (yes, the board game) and one of the best Grateful Dead tribute bands going, there is a lot to see and do in the Bay Area this week and beyond.
Here is a partial rundown.
OCMA hosts 30th Dia de los Muertos celebration
This year’s Día de los Muertos Community Celebration at the Oakland Museum of California is a big one, marking the 30th anniversary of the popular cultural event.
For entertainment, there’s Aztec dancing, salsa and bachata dance lessons, and half-a-dozen musical performances on two stages with acts like Mariachi Bonitas, the Sacramento-based all-female mariachi ensemble, and Diana Gameros, a Mexican-born singer who’s performed with Joan Baez. Food offerings include sweet and savory tamales and spiced coffee from La Guerrera’s Kitchen, pan de muerto from Bakery El Sol, ice cream from De La Creamery and tacos and aguas frescas from Taca Brona.
Kids should enjoy learning how to make tortillas and decorate sugar skulls, dropping by a butterfly-crafting station or having their faces painted, spookily calavera-style. Meanwhile, adults can get some early holiday shopping done at a mercado with vendors like Frida’s Ofrenditas and Dave of the Dead Arts. And this being a museum there’s art, of course, notably the exhibit “Calli: The Art of Xicanx Peoples” that explores feminist, queer and Xicanx-Indigenous perspectives, with gallery chats led by friends and family of one of the artists.
Details: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday; Oakland Museum of California; $10; museumca.org.
— John Metcalfe, Staff
A happyface musical comes to San Jose
Emojis have become such a integral part of human communication that, goshdarnit, it’s only right that they have their own musical. And in 2018, they got just that, when Keith Harrison Dworkin and Laura Schein’s “Emojiland” premiered at the New York Musical Theatre Festival.
The ensemble musical comedy about a community of archetypes living in a smartphone and dealing with their assorted issues (a smiley face who’s depressed; a skull face who just wants to be deleted, already) was enough of a hit that it spawned an off-Broadway run in 2020 that was scuttled by the COVID pandemic after some 60 performances. In a 2022, a national tour of the show was canceled after its first stop; that same year, a one-off concert production of the show was staged on London’s Garrick Theatre.
Now, San Jose Playhouse is presenting what is described as a condensed new version of the musical, with some characters and numbers removed and one new character (“Angry Face”) added. The silly rom-com-meets-existential-thriller finds our emoji heroes and heroines imperiled by a software update that threatens to destroy their world. Obviously, this a show that begs for a Silicon Valley presentation.
Details: Through Nov. 24; performances at 3Below Theaters and Cafe, San Jose; 2 hours, 10 minutes; $65; 3belowtheaters.com.
— Randy McMullen, Staff
Almost Dead sets Bay Area gigs
Joe Russo’s Almost Dead is alive and well — and on its way back to the Bay Area.
The acclaimed Grateful Dead tribute act — featuring bandleader Russo on drums as well as bassist Dave Dreiwitz, keyboardist and longtime Russo collaborator Marco Benevento and vocalist-guitarists Scott Metzger and Tom Hamilton — is performing a two-night stand, Oct. 24-25, at the Fox Theater in Oakland.
And, in true Grateful Dead fashion, many of the fans who attend the first night will also show up at the second gig as well. That’s dedication (or, if you will, “Deadication”), but also a sign that these fans understand that each JRAD concert is unique. That’s in large part because the band — also following along the Dead’s “Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)” — drastically changes up the setlist from night to night.
Also, while some GD tribute acts strive to stay as true as possible to the Dead’s sound, JRAD goes up the opposite direction and chases the music wherever it may take them. The result is exciting, unpredictable and thoroughly fun. Bay Area Deadheads who have yet to acquaint themselves with JRAD should definitely take this opportunity to hear what the band has to offer.
Details: Showtime each night is 7:30 p.m.; $78.15; ticketmaster.com.
— Jim Harrington, Staff
Classical picks: Baroque classics, spooky music, Emanuel Ax
The classical music scene offers an array of riches this week, including Baroque masterworks, a holiday-themed orchestral concert, and an intimate recital with the great American pianist Emanuel Ax.
Italian splendor: Voices of Music, which performs its concerts on Baroque instruments, is looking back to 17th-century Italy with a new program titled “Seicento.” With acclaimed soprano Sherezade Panthaki as the concert’s featured guest artist, the San Francisco-based group will play a program of works by composers Isabella Leonarda, Francesca and Giulio Caccini, and Barbara Strozzi. Details: 7 p.m. Frida at First United Methodist Church, Palo Alto; 7:30 p.m. Saturday at First Congregational Church, Berkeley; 7 p.m. Oct. 27 at Caroline Hume Concert Hall, San Francisco; $5-$63; voicesofmusic.org.
“Symphonic Spooktacular”: Get into the holiday spirit with Symphony San Jose’s Halloween-themed concert, with Peter Jaffe conducting a wide-ranging program including music from Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” and Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” along with works by Bach, Bernard Hermann, Saint-Saens, Schubert, John Williams, and others. Details: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday; California Theatre, San Jose; $24-$121.50; symphonysanjose.org.
Ax is back: The always-sublime pianist Emanuel Ax returns to the San Francisco Symphony for a solo recital featuring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Nos. 13 and 14, along with works by Arnold Schoenberg and Robert Schumann. Details: 7:30 p.m. Sunday; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; $59-$199; sfsymphony.org.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
We have a new ‘Clue’
The long-running iconic “Clue” franchise dates back to 1943 with a board game that was designed by British game designer Anthony E. Pratt. We can only guess that Mr. Pratt probably had no idea of the monster he had unleashed on an unsuspecting public.
The game debuted in 1949 by Waddingtons in the U.K. – its title at the time was “Cluedo” – and was eventually acquired by Hasbro. It has been updated and launched several times since then and has gone on to sell more than 200 million copies worldwide. And there’s more. Spinoff games, books, a TV series and a 1985 film comedy (which, in deference to the game’s ever-changing storyline and finale, featured three different endings) have all emerged, as well as a stage farce that premiered in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 2017 with a cast that included Sally Struthers. All of the productions are based on the concept of a group of odd strangers gathered at a mansion and who find themselves thrust into a murder mystery that players and viewers are meant to solve as the mystery unfolds (giving rise to such famous phrases as “Colonel Mustard in the library with the wrench”).
Now a national tour of the stage play is making its way across the country with two stops in the Bay Area. With a script adapted by Sandy Rustin from Jonathan Lynn’s film screenplay, “Clue” plays through Sunday at San Francisco’s Curran Theater, and Oct. 29 through Nov. 3 at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts.
Details: San Francisco tickets run $50-$130 (www.broadwaysf.com) and San Jose tickets run $32-$130 (subject to change, broadwaysanjose.com).
— Bay Area News Foundation
Arts museum celebrates new home
Since opening in 2022, the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco has employed a newcomer/outsider role in the city’s art scene. It charges no admission, holds no permanent collection of works and follows what founding director Ali Gass calls a “startup” approach, relying on flexibility and creativity to stay afloat at a time when many museums and non-profit arts organizations are struggling. The approach might have something to do with the fact that Bay Area tech companies supply a good chunk of the museum’s financial base. The museum says that approach isn’t going to change even though the facility is moving from its original home in the Dogpatch arts area to a funky little building dubbed “The Cube” in the heart of the city’s financial district.
The grand opening of the museum’s new digs starts Friday, when the museum reopens at its new 345 Montgomery St. location with three new exhibits. Maryam Yousif’s “Riverbend” collection of wooden architectural structures is inspired by recollections of her youth in Iraq. A multi-artist collection curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah titled “The Poetics of Dimensions” features provocative works crafted from such everyday items as durags, plastic objects, shoelaces, etc. And a “Spotlight” exhibit focuses on Kathleen Ryan, whose sculptures, as the museum describes them, “reimagine the detritus of American consumerism.” The museum’s opening weekend runs Oct. 25-27 featuring several special events. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. And admission is still free.
Details: More information is at www.icasf.org
— Bay Area News Foundation
First time’s a charm for opera orchestra
The San Francisco Opera Orchestra has given many a stand-alone concert in the 101 years of the company’s history, but never, curiously enough, has it performed Beethoven’s mighty Ninth Symphony, which has a stirring vocal component in its concluding movement’s “Ode to Joy.”
That omission is rectified this weekend as the Orchestra and the Opera Chorus, along with four soloists, give the famous work its due in observance of its 200th anniversary. At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, music director Eun Sun Kim will lead the performance, which will feature soprano Jennifer Holloway, mezzo-soprano Annka Schlicht, tenor Russell Thomas and bass Kwangchul Youn.
Details: $140-$300; sfopera.com; concert preceded at 6 p.m. by an exploratory lecture about the work by company musicologist Kip Cranna.
— Bay Area News Foundation
