Wednesday 12/16: Berkeley Poetry Slam, the longest running poetry slam in Northern California, features the extraordinary Sam Sax. Sax’s rising poetic star is white hot. He is a 2015 NEA Fellow, winner of the Ruth Lilly Fellowship from The Poetry Foundation, Editor-in-Chief of The Bat City Review, and is publishing like mad. Highly recommended. $7, 8 p.m. (slam sign-up), The Starry Plough.
Thursday 12/17: Annette Leddy, visual arts curator and novelist, reads from her novel, Earth Still. Free, 7 p.m., Bird and Beckett.
The Tenderloin Museum presents its first community open mic night, featuring jazz singer (and Tenderloin resident) Pam Coates. Free, 6:30 p.m., The Tenderloin Museum.
Friday 12/18: The Forum, a literary magazine from San Francisco City College, celebrates the release of their new issue and hosts an open mic. Free, 6:30 p.m., Alley Cat Books.
Saturday 12/19: Diana Aehegma, Hugo García Manríquez, and Nicole Trigg read at the Featherboard Writing Series at an art gallery in Oakland. Free, 6 p.m., Aggregate Space Gallery.
*
This week’s theatre recommendation is Shotgun Players production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. There is a reason why Christie’s play is the longest running show in history. It has legs. Shotgun has given it a lovely staging with highly competent actors—a rare treat, as most productions of The Mousetrap outside of London are presented by amateurs. Christie’s eccentrics can be quite wonderful in the hands of professionals, but are more likely to come off as shabby caricatures when attempted by amateurs. The company at Shotgun is definitely not shabby. For further information click here.
For more extensive coverage of the Bay Area theatre scene, visit TheatreStorm.
*
Evan Karp presents video of this week’s featured local author, JH Phrydas. Read an interview here.
And, finally, here’s some video of recent SF Notable, Brian Laidlaw, reading and singing at Green Apple by the Park to celebrate the release of his first poetry collection, The Stuntman.
***
If you have a Bay Area event listing you’d like us to consider, please contact [email protected] as far in advance as possible, and include the date of the event in the subject line.
