theater

Get your dose of original theater—Intersection for the Arts' resident theater company Campo Santo and The Living Word Project will bring a genre-breaking performance to the stage for the world premiere of Mirrors in Every Corner. Written by emerging playwright Chinaka Hodge, the story chronicles an Oakland-based African American family alternately in the present and in 1988 after the mother gives birth to a Caucasian baby.

Federico Garcia Lorca lives in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Beauty of the Father by Nilo Cruz. Set in Andalusia, Spain, the restless ghost of the Spanish poet wanders the streets and converses with the living. The story is about a young American girl who travels to Spain to meet her estranged father and becomes romantically involved with his Moroccan companion.

Consider this a much appreciated update on one of the classics. From Shakespeare to Tom Stoppard to Theatre FIRST comes the tale of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Straight out of Hamlet and never looking back, you're in for a maelstrom of metaphysics, existentialism and vaudevillian slapstick by one of the great contemporary playwrights.

Note: 1/21 and 1/22 are $10 preview nights. Get tickets now.

For those of you whose New Year's resolutions included shaping up for 2010, boy have we got a deal for you. To celebrate its fifth anniversary, Equinox is teaming up with the cast of Wicked for one very exciting day of working out. Add a little spice to your gym routine with either a spin or boot camp class taught by a surprise actor/actress from the show—extra points if you wear ruby slippers to the gym. Enjoy appetizers, beverages, spa specials, giveaways and a live DJ while you do your thing and then stick around for a special performance from the musical.

Brace yourself for a cutting-edge multimedia experience like no other. England's DV8 Physical Dance Theatre presents its Bay Area premiere of To Be Straight With You, a poetic exploration of tolerance, intolerance, religion and homosexuality. Made up of dance, text, documentary and animated footage, Artistic Director Lloyd Newson has created a controversial piece that demands an audience critique and reaction.

Support the college arts community and make the trek to San Francisco State for a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. A light-hearted break from the bard's more serious work, you'll delight in the live romantic comedy that has stood the test of time.

Tradition meets experimentation at CounterPULSE's Performing Diaspora Festival, where dance, music, theater and mixed media converge. We're looking forward to the new food-focused dance theatre work, Pa'comen(zar) by Cuban-American choreographer Ana Maria Alvarez, the artistic director for L.A.based dance company Contra-Tiempo.

<p>Orwell's 1984 and Gilliam's Brasil twisted the popular consciousness of their time into utopian nightmares. Random Idiot Factor, the latest brainchild of Ham Pants Productions (The Safe Way; Mr. Dingle, the Strong) has deconstructed our society's inadequacies into interwoven comic vignettes that ridicule our cultures most serious shortcomings. It's a lot like the future that's disappointing you right now, but if we all wore jumpsuits. If you think you know what to expect from the minds at Ham Pants Productions, you should think again, because you don't. So there.

<p>What: Join us for an outrageous, theatrical tribute to the great 60’s variety shows like Laugh-In, Shindig, and Hullabaloo. The Go Go Spectacular will be an action-packed night filled with live performances by The Barbary Coasters and Deke Dickerson’s All Star Frat Band as well as special guests, comedy, historic tributes to the 1960s and as much shimmying as The Devil-Ettes and The Mini Skirt Mob can cram into two hours!