This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the performing arts in the San Francisco Bay Area, guest host Kevin Vance talks to AeJay Mitchell, director and choreographer of the Theater Rhino production of the musical Sister Act, which runs through June 1 at the Gateway Theatre (215 Jackson St.) in San Francisco.
Sister Act is based on the famous 1992 movie comedy with Whoopi Goldberg, set and shot largely in San Francisco. Goldberg plays Deloris, a lounge singer who is forced to join a convent after being placed in a witness protection program. At Theatre Rhinoceros, the longest-running queer theatre in the world, Branden Noel Thomas (above, right) stars as Deloris, in a cast with all gender-switched leads. Branden also joins the conversation.
Also, a conversation about the 2019 SF International Arts Festival with executive director Andrew Wood. The festival runs from May 23 through June 2 in multiple venues at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco, and features over 50 artists and ensembles from the Bay Area and 12 other countries. Joining the conversation is Ata Wong Chun Tat, artistic director of the Hong Kong based theater group Théâtre de la Feuille, which combines Western theatrical training methodology with Eastern artistic traditions.
Theatre de la Feuille performs the US premiere of L’Orphelin 2.0, based on the 13thcentury play The Orphan of Zhao, the first Chinese play to be translated into any European language (French, 1731), and sometimes described as the Chinese Hamlet. Performances are on Friday, May 24 (8:15pm) and Sunday, May 26 (5:00pm) at the Cowell Theater.
We have live music in the studio by members of the Real Vocal String Quartet (Irene Sazer, Sumaia Jackson, David Tangney, Sam Shuhan), plus guest cellist Marta Roma, on the occasion of the release of RVSQ’s new CD, Culture Kin, on May 25 (8pm) at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
Culture Kin features original songs and pieces performed in collaboration with artists from San Francisco's international sister cities: Seoul (South Korea), Abidjian (Cote D'Ivoire), Barcelona (Spain), Zurich (Switzerland), Cork (Ireland), Sao Paolo (Brazil), and Osaka (Japan), plus music by composer George Brooks from Berkeley.
Plus, Open Air’s regular contributor and critic at large, Peter Robinson, discusses his suggestions for your summer reading; something for the plane or train, to take to the beach, or for a quiet evening in your hotel: The Second Mountain by David Brooks; Our Man by George Packer, a bio of Richard Holbrooke; Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis; and The Enchanted April, a 1922 novel by British writer Elizabeth von Arnim.
Open Air, with guest host Kevin Vance, is broadcast live on Thursday, May 23, at 1pm. Listen now or anytime…