Nearby forests are difficult to get to with high gas prices and fires, but you can enjoy forestry locally at the UC Davis Arboretum. Take in nature's beauty, or check out any of the exhibits and theater happenings we detail below, in Sacramento, Davis or the Bay Area.
As always, with the Arts Blog, we've got the weekend in your pocket. Have a great weekend!
Kiss Me Kate at Broadway Sacramento
Through July 16
Battle lines are drawn as a bickering divorced couple find themselves working on the same musical, a Broadway version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. The beloved multiple Tony-winning musical comedy Kiss Me Kate is filled with backstage shenanigans, onstage mishaps and unexpected romance. Featuring an explosive Cole Porter score with some of the composer’s wittiest lyrics and catchiest melodies, including the favorite songs “Another Op’nin’, Another Show,” “So In Love” and “Too Darn Hot.”
Find more information and purchase tickets here.
The Music Man by Davis Musical Theatre Company continues
The Music Man follows fast-talking traveling salesman Harold Hill as he cons the people of River City, Iowa into buying instruments and uniforms for a boys' band he vows to organize — this despite the fact he doesn't know a trombone from a treble clef. His plans to skip town with the cash are foiled when he falls for Marian the librarian, who transforms him into a respectable citizen by curtain's fall.
Remaining shows include Friday, July 15, 8 p.m.; Saturday, July 16, 8 p.m.; and Sunday, July 17, 2 p.m. Purchase tickets here.
Davis Musical Theatre Company is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to conserve the Classic American Musical art form. DMTC will endeavor to produce quality, affordable, family-oriented theatrical musicals open to all people. With both a Main Stage and a Young Performers Theater, DMTC will strive to involve a multitude of people and families seeking to make a contribution toward the preservation of the musical theater art form.
DMTC currently performs at the Jean Henderson Performing Arts Center, 607 Pena Drive, Davis.
Illuminated Miniatures Workshop at Pence Gallery
Saturday, Sunday, July 16 – 17, 10 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Learn a brief history of medieval illuminated miniatures as you paint your own miniature on goatskin parchment. Ann Marie Campbell is an expert in illuminated miniatures and will guide you step-by-step in this ancient art form. You will learn to gild and to make egg tempera paint, the kind of paint used by monks in the Middle Ages. Books at that time were made from animal skins, deer, sheep, goat, and only egg tempera paints are appropriate for the parchments. Ann will provide several templates for use as guides. The workshop can be taken by beginners as well as more proficient painters. All materials are provided in the materials fee. Please bring a notebook and pen/pencil for notes.
Participants are required to show proof of vaccination on or before the day of the workshop. Find more information and purchase tickets here.
Diego Rivera at SFMOMA
Diego Rivera's America includes free event Sunday
July 16 – Jan. 2, 2023
The most in-depth examination of the artist’s work in over two decades, Diego Rivera’s America brings together more than 150 of Rivera’s paintings, frescoes, and drawings — as well as three galleries devoted to large-scale film projections of highly influential murals he created in Mexico and the United States. Rather than surveying his entire career, the exhibition focuses on Rivera’s work from the 1920s to the mid-1940s, when he was conceiving a new vision for North America informed by his travels in Mexico and the U.S. Some parts of the exhibit are free, including an event Sunday.
Celebrate the opening of Diego Rivera’s America with a FREE day of revelry, activism, community, and art.
All day long, visit the museum galleries for free and experience the vibrant creativity of San Francisco’s Mission District with music and dance performances curated by Accíon Latina; a mercado featuring crafts by local artisans; a lowrider display; a digital mural installation by Lauren Rose D’Amato and Derek Holguin; a community screening and dialogue around Moving a Masterpiece, the Emmy-award-winning documentary about Diego Rivera’s Pan American Unity, co-produced by SFMOMA and NBC; and of course, the public’s first peek at Diego Rivera’s America! Go here for more information on the free event.
Ten thematic galleries are dedicated to places like Tehuantepec and Manhattan that captured his imagination, and to his favorite subjects, such as street markets, popular celebrations, and images of labor and industry.
See archival video on the exhibit here.
Purchase tickets here.
(a)way station
July 16 – May 21, 2023
Conventional notions of home are centered around the stability and security of built structures where private life and daily ritual shape and are shaped by dedicated spaces. For migrants, however, domestic spaces and activities are inherently provisional. Caught between a former home and the possibility of returning or resettling elsewhere, life is disrupted and suspended in a period of transition.
With (a)way station, Paul Kariouk and Mabel O. Wilson use architecture as a mechanism to consider migration. Building materials, furniture, belongings, and personal stories— the components of home — are compressed into a series of towering structures that present architecture as it is shaped by the experience of migration. While architecture and migrancy most often converge at the sites and structures of origin or destination, (a)way station explores the aesthetic and spatial experience of migration en route.
Purchase tickets here.
'Faith Ringgold: American People' and more at de Young
July 16 – Nov. 27
Bringing together 50 years of work, this is the most comprehensive exhibition to date of Faith Ringgold’s groundbreaking vision. Featuring works from across Ringgold’s best-known series, this show tracks the development of her figurative style as it evolved to meet the urgency of political and social change. Throughout her career, Ringgold has drawn from personal and collective histories to both document her life and amplify the struggles for justice and equity. From creating some of the most indelible artworks of the civil rights era to challenging accepted hierarchies of art versus craft through her experimental story quilts, Ringgold has produced a body of work that bears witness to the complexity of the American experience. Long overdue, this retrospective provides a timely opportunity to engage with the art of an American icon.
The Obama portrait tour is also on view at the museum. See more about that here.
Find more information and purchase tickets here.
The Legion of Honor, additionally, has a costume exhibit. Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy runs through Sept. 5.
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Media contact:
- Karen Nikos-Rose, UC Davis Arts Blog Editor, kmnikos@ucdavis.edu