It’s been musically stated that love is lovelier the second time around. So singer-actress Nancy Dussault — last seen in San Francisco in 1999 for “Threepenny Opera” at the American Conservatory Theater — will explore the thought for two nights at the Rrazz Room.“Val and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary,” Dussault says, referring to her husband, director Valentine Mayer, “and we were both so proud of ourselves for achieving that number. In talking about how we met and what happened in our life together ... something happened ... again.
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Though she’s usually in a New York state of mind, Sandra Bernhard is taking a holiday from her neighborhood to appear at the Marines’ Memorial Theatre this weekend. She’s also joining in the San Francisco Pride festivities with a number of other appearances around town.
The outspoken comedian is a fairly regular Bay Area visitor. She appeared at the Castro Theatre last fall for an evening of her unique perspectives. That comedy concert was recorded and is now available on her CD, “I Like Being Me, Don’t You?”
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San Francisco sports an incredible array of film festivals, from silent and noir to global themes. Few, however, offer quite as colorful and intriguing an array of programming as Frameline, which presents the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival each June during Gay Pride Month.Now celebrating its 35th anniversary, the festival is centered at the Castro Theatre, though events will also be held around town at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Temple Nightclub, the Roxie and Victoria theaters, and at the Elmwood in Berkeley.
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In the world of showbiz, it’s sometimes easy to overlook that the second syllable is short for “business.”
That’s not the case with Kim Nalley, who opens a five-week run at the Rrazz Room on Tuesday with “She Put a Spell on Me” featuring the music of Nina Simone.
The accomplished jazz singer knows all too well what’s involved in keeping the doors open from her years running the club Jazz at Pearl’s, which was not necessarily the career boost people might think.
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Boxcar Theatre has put a very real “Little Shop of Horrors” on its Natoma Street doorstep and created an exciting piece of environmental musical theater in the process. Director Nick A. Olivero, part of the team that turned the screenplay for “Clue” into a three-dimensional romp earlier this year, has ambitious visions. He is blessed here with a company in and behind the scenes that can bring most of them to life.
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Herb Alpert and Lani Hall, who appear at the Palace of Fine Arts on Tuesday, love to keep their music loose, with an improvisational hook.
The title of their most recent CD — “I Feel You” on Concord Jazz — says it all.
“It’s the feeling of not being afraid to make a mistake,” says Alpert. “If you are too cautious and you’re trying to make everything perfect, it’s going to sound that way. We kind of like to let it fly and see what happens.”
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Traveling for work can be an obligation or an opportunity. Tony Award winner Lillias White is looking forward to jetting to San Francisco to sing songs by Cy Coleman at the Venetian Room this weekend, and she’s also still basking in the glow of her most recent trip.
“It was remarkable, incredible, tremendous, fantastic,” she says of visiting Lagos, Nigeria. White portrayed musician and activist Fela Kuti’s mother, Funmilayo, in the Broadway musical “Fela!” and the production recently toured to Kuti’s native Nigeria.
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Betty Buckley is returning to San Francisco, but not for the reason most people who follow theater expected. Buckley will perform a week of Broadway show-tune concerts at the Rrazz Room — all songs she’s never performed before — then move on to her next engagement, which is not the production of “Tales of the City” at American Conservatory Theater.
She’s disappointed about that and says scheduling conflicts kept her from the role of Anna Madrigal, which she played in workshops for a month in October. Judy Kaye will play the part when the show opens next month.
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Turning the spotlight on mostly local performers, the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation is offering up a bevy of “Divas & Dames” at the Marines’ Memorial Theatre on Sunday.
On the local side, the show will feature Connie Champagne, Maureen McVerry, Carmen Milagro and Carly Ozard. They will be supported by faux gals Matthew Martin and Donna Sachet, along with the bounteous babes of B.O.O.B.S. (Leanne Borghesi, Jessica Coker and Soila Hughes) and the Motown moves of La’Chic (Felicia Curtis, Jacqueline McBride and Chayla Smith).
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When “Angels in America” received its world premiere at the Eureka Theatre Co., AIDS was considered a decade-old epidemic. On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the first reported case of the pandemic disease, Theatre Shark has produced a spare and compelling production of “Millennium Approaches,” the first half of Tony Kushner’s “Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”
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No sooner do the Grand Guignol masters at Thrillpeddlers close their record-breaking 22-month run of “Pearls Over Shanghai” than they check into the palace. Technically that’s the “Vice Palace: The Last Cockettes Musical,” which opens this week and runs through July.
If you weren’t in the Haight for the Summer of Love, or if you haven’t seen San Francisco filmmaker David Weissman’s excellent 2002 documentary on them, you should know The Cockettes were a hippie, drag performance troupe.
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With a look that evokes Julie Newmar on a blond day, Bay Area chanteuse Veronica Klaus is serving up the music of jazz singer Peggy Lee for two nights at the Rrazz Room next week.After more than two decades on stages in The City, Klaus has developed an ability to switch from the bawd to the siren and back with ease, so it’s surprising how soft-spoken, almost genteelly shy, she is off stage. The low-key demeanor is even more surprising when you learn that an early role model was the anything-but-subtle Bette Midler.
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Ask Suzanne Ramsey to suggest a film that gives a legitimate taste of burlesque and she won’t be touting the recent Hollywood outing starring Cher and Christina Aguilera.
Instead, she recommends “On Tour” — and not just because she stars in it.
Her film, by French actor and director Mathieu Amalric, closes this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival and, according to Ramsey, is a lot truer to the world of new burlesque, for which she is an active proponent.
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There’s an adage in Hollywood that the best Oscar bait for a woman is playing a whore. It worked when Helen Hayes committed “The Sin of Madelon Claudet” in 1931, and dozens of actresses since have risen in esteem by being “fallen” on screen. That includes Shirley Jones, who makes a special appearance at the Castro Theatre on Wednesday.
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In playwright Terrence McNally’s “Master Class,” an imperious opera diva schools a small group of gifted voice students in both technical training and reminiscences from her fabled career.
If you substitute beloved for imperious you have the perfect description for “An Evening with Frederica von Stade” at San Francisco Conservatory of Music on Tuesday.
The New Jersey native — “Flicka” to her friends — will share technique tips with a select group of conservatory voice students on stage, interspersed with personal stories told to the audience at this free event.
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