Freebie of the week: Members of Friends of Levitt Pavilion San Jose are still working on their dream to bring a stage to historic St. James Park in that city. But they’ve already proved adept at inviting stage-worthy musicians to the park for their twice-annual free concert series. The group’s long-term goal is to erect a Levitt Pavilion in the park to anchor a year-round concert series featuring some 50 performances. The project has been delayed by legal challenges, but the group has been staging fall and spring concerts to illustrate how valuable free public music can be toward bringing a community together and a neighborhood to life. The 2023 fall series continues Sunday with a performance by the East Bay’s own Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, better known as Fantastic Negrito, a talented singer and musician who performs what he calls “Black Roots Music,” a blend of R&B, soul, blues and more that sounds classic and contemporary at the same time. After kicking around for years in the East Bay music scene, Negrito broke through with an astounding performance on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series in 2015 and followed with a Grammy-winning album, “The Last Days of Oakland” in 2016. More recently, he released two albums, 2022’s “White Jesus Black Problems” and this year’s “Grandfather Courage” from his East Bay-based Storefront Records label. The concert runs from 3 to 6:30 p.m. at St. James Park at North Second and East St. James streets in San Jose. San Jose cumbia musician Mathew Gabriel Gonzales, aka Philthy Dronez, opens. Beer, wine and other beverages will be available, along with offerings from several food trucks. More information is at levittsanjose.org,
The Great Duh-Merican Solo Show: If you’re convinced that America is plunging headlong into an abyss of profound stupidity — with or without a functioning government — there are a handful of things you can do. Our choice is: Laugh. Actor and comedian Robert Dubac is headed back to the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek to help us do just that. Dubac, who got his start on the sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes” playing Kimberly’s boyfriend, has created a cottage industry of solo comedic shows that poke fun at subjects that are both sacred cows and low-hanging fruit. His first and arguably biggest splash in the comedy world came with the solo show “The Male Intellect–An Oxymoron,” which he performed at the Lesher Center last year. His follow-up is the even more all-encompassing “The Book of Moron,” which spoofs an American media and political landscape defined by “fake news” and reality TV. Described as a sort of 21st-century Mark Twain, Dubac splices serious social commentary into his satire, but his primary objective is to deliver 90 minutes of cathartic, knee-slapping humor. He performs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. Tickets are $56; go to www.lesherartscenter.org.
Lights, camera, giggles: The Bay Area is hosting two stage shows with classical comedy motifs in non-traditional settings. “POTUS” at Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a raucous, door-slamming comedy with a feminist bent featuring an all-female cast playing characters propping up a seriously incompetent president. And San Francisco Playhouse presents the West Coast premiere of playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s latest, “Nollywood Dreams.” Its storyline reads like a classic Hollywood-set rom-com from the mid-20th century: an aspiring actress catches the eye of a heralded director, the heart of a famous movie star and the ire of a diva who fears the arrival of the “next big thing.” Only this story isn’t set in Hollywood. It takes place in Nigeria, where the film business is thriving amid the country’s political turmoil. Bioh’s romantic musical “Goddess,” set in a Kenyan Afro-jazz nightclub, got its world premiere at Berkeley Rep last year. In “Nollywood,” Angel Adedokun stars as the wannabe actress, Tre’Vonne Bell is the film director, Wale Osuwu is the handsome leading man and Anna Marie Sharpe is the territorial star, billed as the “Nigerian Halle Berry with Tina Turner legs.” Overseeing these characters and a few others is director Margo Hall, who’s artistic director at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre and a Bay Area stage icon. “Nollywood” plays through Nov. 4 at SF Playhouse, 450 Post St., San Francisco. Tickets are $15-$100; go to www.sfplayhouse.org/sfph.
A ‘warhorse’ worth the remount: It matters not how many times and in how many different places you have heard it, Beethoven’s monumental Ninth Symphony, even just competently performed, is always a glorious experience. And we can expect more than mere competence when the multi-Grammy Award winning San Francisco Symphony, under the baton of returning music director laureate Michael Tilson Thomas, brings it to vibrant life again on the Davies Hall stage this weekend. Comprising the entire concert program, these performances of the Ninth will feature, in the famous “Ode to Joy” in its final movement, the soaring soprano of Angel Blue, here on the symphony’s orchestra series for the first time but remembered for her role as Clara in the symphony’s 2009 performance of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” and more recently, for her stunning turn as Leonora in San Francisco Opera’s September production of Verdi’s “Il Trovatore.” Joining her in the vocal pyrotechnics are fellow soloists Tamara Mumford, mezzo-soprano; Ben Bliss, tenor; Dashon Burton, bass; and the mighty full complement of the 152-voice San Francisco Symphony Chorus, under the guidance of new director Jenny Wong. Performance times are 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Find tickets, $79-$272, at (415) 864-6000 and www.sfsymphony.org.
And from another musical giant: While Beethoven will be ringing in the ears of San Francisco concertgoers, folks further south will be reveling in the strains of that genius Johann Sebastian, as Symphony San Jose, conducted by Nathan Aspinall, mounts a celebratory “BACHTOBERFEST!” With the courtyard of the California Theatre magically transformed into a beer garden, patrons can sip a stein full or two as they prepare to hear two of the Baroque master’s greatest hits, the Orchestral Suite No. 3 and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, with soloists Jonathan Salzedo on harpsichord, MyungJu Yeo on flute and Robin Mayforth on violin. Also on the program are Michael-Thomas Foumai’s “Music from the Castle of Heaven” and the Symphony No. 5, the “Reformation,” by Felix Mendelssohn, the composer whose special attention to Bach in the early 19th century brought that composer’s music back into the limelight. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets, $55-$115, are available at (408) 286-2600 and symphonysanjose.org.