This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the Bay Area Performing Arts, host David Latulippe talks to actor Tina D’Elia about her role in OUT of Site: Haight-Ashbury, which starts this weekend. Also, conversations with ODC creative director Chloë Zimberg and composer Rinde Eckert about the second weekend of the ninth annual ODC Theater Festival; we talk with the new director of programming, Allegra Madsen, about the start of Frameline45 — the world’s largest LGBTQ+ film festival. Plus, Peter Robinson takes us to beautiful Sausalito.
Award-winning stage, television and film actor Tina D'Elia is the star of this summer’s edition of OUT of Site, San Francisco's performance-driven queer history tour. Following tours of North Beach and South of Market, this year's OUT of Site visits the Haight-Ashbury. Directed by Seth Eisen, with an original script by Michelle Carter, D’Elia plays two key figures from San Francisco’s 60s/70s counterculture.
One of them is Peggy Caserta (pic 1), a successful out lesbian business owner on Haight Street and the inventor of the bell bottom jeans, outfitting rock's new royalty like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. She was also Janis Joplin's laid-back lesbian lover, later scapegoated as the cause of Joplin's untimely death.
Returning to Open Air to talk about the second weekend of the ODC Theater Festival is ODC Theater creative director Chloë Zimberg. Joining her is writer, composer, singer, actor and director Rinde Eckert to discuss his collaboration with choreographer Margaret Jenkins (pic 2) in the premiere of Migratory Passages, fourth in a series of thematically related dance theater duets.
Migratory Passages ties together the threads of the previous three duets (Shorebirds Atlantic, And So They, and Shadows & Water), with recurring natural elements and questions about life and death. Originally planned as a live performance, Migratory Passages will premiere on June 12 as a film at the ODC Theater Festival.
From Frameline45 —the world’s largest LGBTQ+ film festival— we talk with the new director of programming, Allegra Madsen. The festival runs June 10 - 27 and is slated to be the largest and most attended festival in Frameline history. For 17 days, the festival features a hybrid of in-person and virtual offerings, including four drive-in screenings, two shows at Oracle Park in partnership with San Francisco Pride and the San Francisco Giants, as well as over 50 virtual film screenings. In addition, in-person screenings return to Frameline with a series of special shows at San Francisco’s historic Castro Theatre and Roxy Theater.
Plus, now that Summer outdoor activities are opening up, Open Air’s regular contributor and critic at large, Peter Robinson, reports from beautiful Sausalito on the history of the water front - from the sea birds to the house boats - and he visits the dock where Otis Redding (pic 4) composed his famous song. He includes tips on kayaking, where to get lessons or discover the fun of paddle boarding, and seeing the world from water level.
With this week’s show, Open Air will be back for a few weeks on its pre-pandemic format, without Corona Radio Theater, until we partner with the San Francisco Mime Troupe again, this time for ten consecutive weeks over the summer, starting July 8. The Mime Troupe’s summer program features two longer stories and a few ‘one-off’ episodes, all under the title Tales of the Resistance Volume 2: Persistence.
Open Air with host David Latulippe, heard live on Thursday June 10 at 1pm, to be archived at this location thereafter. Listen now or anytime…