This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the Bay Area performing arts, guest host Angie Coiro talks with dancers Shinichi and Dana Iova-Koga (pic 1), who perform in These are the Ones We Fell Among, at ODC Theater November 5-7. Also, actors Laird Mackintosh and Adam Grupper, who play the parts of Professor Henry Higgins (pic 2) and Alfred P. Doolittle (pic 3) in My Fair Lady at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco (Nov 2-28); and violinist Natasha Makhijani (pic 4) of the Chamber Music Society of SF about Notes from St. Petersburg, the opening concert of their new season (Nov 4-7). Plus, cast member Alison Ewing and executive artistic director Daniel Thomas from 42ndStreet Moon, about their production of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at the Gateway Theatre in San Francisco (Nov 4 – 21).
These are the Ones We Fell Among was conceived, choreographed, written and directed by Ann Carlson in collaboration with inkBoat founder Shinichi Iova-Koga and wife Dana Iova-Koga. As one of the most influential postmodern dance makers of her generation, Carlson is influenced by the disciplines of dance and theater, as well as visual, conceptual and social art practices. InkBoat is a physical theater and dance company drawing primarily from the Japanese performing and martial arts, improvisational arts and Daoist internal arts.
These are the Ones We Fell Among takes inspiration from the movements, myths and metaphors of our endangered animal cousins – elephants. It grapples with elegance in the face of extinction, looking for humor and grace amid excrement, entropy, fear and fury. The show runs from November 5 - 7, both in-person (Fri, Sat 8pm; Sun 4pm); and on demand November 12 - 19.
From the Lincoln Center Theatre production of My Fair Lady, through November 28 at the historic Orpheum Theatre (1192 Market St.) in San Francisco for Broadway SF, we talk with actors Laird Mackintosh, who plays Professor Henry Higgins, and Adam Grupper, who plays Alfred P. Doolittle.
Boasting such classic songs as I Could Have Danced All Night, The Rain in Spain, and Wouldn’t It Be Loverly, the musical My Fair Lady tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flower seller, and Henry Higgins, a linguistics professor who is determined to transform her into his idea of a ‘proper lady.’ But who is really being transformed?
We talk with Natasha Makhijani, violinist with the Chamber Music Society of SF about the opening concert of their new season, Notes from St. Petersburg, featuring guest artist, cellist Hannah Addario-Berry, with on the program Arensky’s beautiful String Quartet Opus 35 - a rare string quartet featuring double celli instead of the more common double violins. The concert will be performed at Noe Valley Ministry (SF, November 4, 7:30pm), Piedmont Center for the Arts (Piedmont, November 5, 7:30 pm), and Elizabeth Gamble Gardens (Palo Alto, November 7, 4pm).
Plus, we talk about Stephen Sondheim’s musical A Little Night Music, opening the new season at 42ndStreet Moon, with cast member Alison Ewing, and executive artistic director Daniel Thomas, also music director of the show.
A Little Night Music is a romantic farce par excellence. Based on the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, couples meet, part, reunite during a glorious ‘Weekend in the Country’ – all under the watchful eyes of the wry family matriarch and a harmonizing Greek chorus. The beautiful Sondheim score contains his biggest hit in Send in the Clowns.
This production is part of the Sondheim Sweep, 42nd Street Moon’s ambitious venture to be the first theatre company ever to produce every single professional stage show by legendary composer, Stephen Sondheim. A Little Night Music runs at the Gateway Theatre (215 Jackson Street) in San Francisco) from November 4 – 21.
Open Air with guest host Angie Coiro, heard live on Thursday, November 4 at 1pm, to be archived thereafter at this very location until the Internet dies. Listen now or anytime…