Hooray for amateurs — the masses of people who exercise their creative muscles for the sheer heck of it and not for money or fame. If more of us spent our spare time learning to dance like Beyonce, writing novels in only a month, and taking improv classes, there’d probably be fewer wars.
Needless to say, the Bay Area is fairly bonkers with opportunities for artistic endeavor for residents and visitors of all ages, ethnicities and cultural interests. And during the holiday season, participation in everything from karaoke at the company Christmas party to the local orchestra’s Singalong Messiah, goes way up.
So I wanted to include in this week’s survey of performing arts events a couple of proudly amateur happenings alongside stuff that’s more pro. It’s the first of what I hope will be many nods to the everyday folks who get their kicks from all manner of artistic pastimes, as well as a couple of the institutions that help to make all this creativity possible for cultural hobbyists around the Bay.
Tuesday, Dec. 8 – Sunday, Dec. 13: San Francisco Opera presents The Fall of the House of Usher at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco. That Edgar Allan Poe’s spectral story about a mentally unstable brother, his physically unstable twin sister, and the craggy-decrepit fortress in which they live has captured the minds of opera creators for well over a century is no surprise: This supreme work of Gothic schlockery (on par with The Raven) is full of the stuff — an unlikely plot, characters on the brink of death and madness, lightning — that makes opera fans drool. French Impressionist Claude Debussy, American Minimalist Philip Glass and British prog rock songwriter Peter Hammill are among those who have excavated Poe’s story for the opera stage. The San Francisco Opera’s double-bill of short, Usher-inspired works combines Debussy’s La Chute de la Maison Usher and American composer Gordon Getty’s Usher House to create an evening of stormy music and imposing visuals. Both works star Brian Mulligan, who chilled Bay Area audiences’ bones in the role of Sweeney Todd at San Francisco Opera earlier this season and may do the same now as the emotionally volatile Roderick Usher.
Thursday, Dec. 10: Drag Queens on Ice at the Union Square holiday ice rink, San Francisco. Forget the imposing Christmas tree and the streams of sweating shoppers barging their way into Macy’s. You only truly know the holidays have arrived when a bunch of San Francisco’s most celebrated drag queens exchange their heels for ice skates and take to the rink in Union Square. Although the event feels a little like a publicity stunt for big business — Safeway, Bank of the West and Alaska Airlines all have their names slapped on this icecapade — performances in the great art of lip-synching by the likes of Mutha Chuka, Paju Munro, and BeBe Sweetbriar while careening across the ice will doubtless bring some much-needed lipstick, lamế and levity to the downtown holiday shopping scramble.
