This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the performing arts in the San Francisco Bay Area, host David Latulippe talks with playwright Mfoniso Udofia (above), about the world premiere of her play In Old Age at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco’s Fort Mason.
In Old Age, which runs through April 21, is the fifth installment of Udofia’s nine-part series of plays, in which she tells the multi-generational stories of a family of Nigerian immigrants and their American-born children. Other chapters of Mfoniso’s cycle (Sojourners, runboyrun) were performed at Magic in the 2015-16 season. The fourth installment of the cycle, Her Portmanteau, recently part of a special collaboration with American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.).
We talk to Rachel Rosen, director of programming at SFFILM, about the 2019 SFFILM Festival, which opens on April 10 and runs through April 23 in venues around the Bay Area. She brings with her the award-winning documentary director and producer Sara Dosa, whose documentary The Seer and the Unseenpremieres during the festival, on April 13.
We talk with choreographer Alonzo King and Emmy Award-winning Vietnamese musician and composer Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, who collaborate for the first time to create a new work that draws from global traditions, and pushes the boundaries of their respective disciplines. Performances take place April 12-21 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (700 Howard St.) in San Francisco.
From Oakland-based theater company Ragged Wing, we talk with Artistic Director Amy Sass, who wrote and directs the original new play Time Sensitive, a fantastical tale that combines clockwork choreography, rhythmic fugue and melting ice-art, in collaboration with climate artist Carter Brooks, who joins the conversation. Time Sensitive opens on April 5 and runs through May 4 at The Flight Deck (1540 Broadway) in Oakland.
Plus, we talk to Brett Strader, artistic director of the Sing for America Foundation, about the 2019 Sing for America benefit concert, on April 7 (at 7 pm) at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco, featuring among others, soprano Deborah Voigt.
Open Air with host David Latulippe; heard live on Thursday, April 4 at 1pm. Listen now or anytime…