Chelsea Knight
March 1 - Chelsea Knight at the Wattis. As part of their year of programming that grapples with the practice of the great Andrea Fraser, the Wattis is hosting a "performative lecture" tomorrow night by NYC video and performance artist Chelsea Knight that promises to be totally rad. She will be taking on the persona of an artist giving an artist talk and will be featuring clips of her past work. Where fact ends and fiction begins, and vice versa, might be completely subjective.
Mica Sigourney by Robbie Sweeny
March 1 - The News: Queer Exceptionality at SOMArts. For those who prefer their performance art with a gay cabaret twist, check out The News instead. Every month a select group of local artists gathers at SOMArts to present new work, with each piece no longer than 10 minutes. Tomorrow night writer Emily K. Holmes is the guest curator and has asked Mia Satya, John Cartwright and Mica Sigourney, Minji Sohn, Kiyan “Kiki” Williams aka Mx Sula, and wild card KVNDRY SINGS to consider the theme of queer exceptionality.
Luisa Frasconi and Lauren Spencer
Through March 12 - Mechanics of Love at Crowded Fire. Dipika Guha's inventive new play doesn't pretend to offer any ultimate answers about love, but her characters certainly try their best to figure things out. Fairzi's husband Glen has a memory condition and keeps eloping with other women when he forgets he's married, but without any rancor Faizi invites the latest one, the ballerina Francesca, to live with her and Glen as a sort of personal assistant. A genial mechanic named Georg further complicates matters, as does the fact that Glen's affliction appears to be catching...
Tyrone Mitchell Henderson and Tim Kang
Through March 27 - Aubergine at Berkeley Rep. What began as a short play about food written by Julia Cho several years ago for Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor is now an exceptional full-length production that remains intimate even as it examines mortality and generational differences. Cho manages to perfectly balance the hard stuff with a sharp sense of humor, but I guarantee there will still be a few tears as Tim Kang's Ray comes to terms with imminent death of his father, a Korean immigrant to the States. Food remains a strong theme throughout the play too, and many of my favorite moments involved the characters describing Proustian memories of meals past. Highly recommend, but do not attend hungry.