This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the Bay Area performing arts, guest host Sarah Cahill talks with actors Rona Figueroa and David Breitbarth (pictured), cast members of A.C.T.’s new production of Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist satire Rhinoceros, currently at the Geary Theater (415 Geary St.) in San Francisco.
In Rhinoceros, the inhabitants of a small, provincial French town slowly turn into rhinoceroses; ultimately the only human who does not succumb to this mass metamorphosis is the central character, Bérenger (Breitbarth). Tony Award-winning director Frank Galati helms the all-new adaptation of this wickedly entertaining comedy about power, conformism, and mass culture. Rhinoceros runs through June 23.
Also stopping by is internationally-acclaimed singer, actor, and impressionist Christina Bianco, who returns to Feinstein’s at the Nikko with her new show Me, Myself, And Everyone Else!, on Thursday, June 6 (8 pm). In her show, she celebrates the world’s most iconic vocalists and pop-culture personalities from yesterday and today, in a vast range of styles and eras.
We talk to Seth Eisen, founder and director of Eye Zen, about OUT of Site: SOMA, part two of a series of performance-driven, queer history walking tours. After last year’s tours in the North Beach neighborhood, OUT of Site now focuses on San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood and its hidden history, from Native American Two-Spirit culture to the Folsom Street Fair, from lesbian auto mechanics to labor activists, from dock workers to drag queens. Cast member and comedian Marga Gomez joins the conversation. OUT of Site: SOMA runs June 8-9 and 15-16 (Sat. noon and 3pm; Sun 1pm).
Plus, Open Air’s regular contributor and critic at large, Peter Robinson, talks with travel writer Joel Stratte-McClure about his trilogy of travel narratives The Idiot and the Odyssey, on his 20-year walk through countries around the Mediterranean Sea. Stratte-McClure is an American journalist/adventurer who lived in France for more than three decades and has been writing about his global trekking and hiking adventures since the 1970s. He will be at the Sausalito library on Thursday, June 6 (7pm) for a presentation with slide show.
Open Air with guest host Sarah Cahill, heard live on Thursday, May 30, at 1pm. Listen now or anytime…