SF Sketchfest bounty: San Francisco’s annual comedy explosion known as SF Sketchfest has something to tickle just about everyone’s funny bone. Sketchfest was founded in 2001 by Bay Area comedians David Owen, Cole Stratton and Janet Varney to showcase local sketch comedy groups, and over the years has developed into one of the world’s most extensive and impressive comedy festivals. Running Thursday through Feb. 2, it features nearly 200 shows at mostly San Francisco venues. Events run from standup comedy to celebrity Q&As to film screenings with special guests to pretty much anything that isn’t a chemical weapons explosion. There is obviously too much going on to describe everything here but one really promising looking offering is an improv event titled “Dinner Date.” It features Rachel Bloom of (“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” fame), Dan Gregor, John Ross Bowie and Jamie Denbo on a fake, extemporaneous dinner date that, as organizers say, “could end in anything from murder to polygamy depending on the suggestion.” It’s onstage at 7 p.m. Friday and 9:30 p.m. Saturday at the Great Star Theater in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Tickets are $45-$57. Also, San Francisco’s long-running Porchlight storytelling series has a gig at the Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell St., from 8 to 9:30 p.m. on Friday. Porchlight co-founders Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick are in the lineup of actors, writers and musicians who will stand in front of the microphone without benefit of notes or teleprompters and attempt to entertain the audience with a full 10 minutes of witty monologue. Other participants are musician Merrill Garbus of the band Tune-Yards, actor-writer-producer Michael Hitchcock, “MythBusters” co-host Adam Savage, writer Ayelet Waldman, composer-arranger-producer Marc Capelle, TV and movie actor Gary Anthony Williams and funk musicians Dawn Silva and Gail Muldrow. Find tickets, $38 including a service fee, and the full festival lineup at sfsketchfest.com.
Taking a bow: Not every comedian in the Bay Area this week is here for Sketchfest. Take Isabel Hagen. The New York City-born entertainer lands at Stanford University on Thursday for two performances presented by Stanford Live. Some might recognize Hagen from her other main pursuit. She is a classically trained violist who has performed with contemporary classical and new music outfits as well as in the pit orchestra for Broadway productions including “Lion King,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Les Miserables.” While she was a sophomore at the Juilliard School, Hagen posted a comedic video titled “How to Convince People You’re Really Good at Chamber Music,” and the positive response she got convinced her she might have a knack for comedy. And when she was sidelined from playing music for a time because of an injury, she hit open mic comedy nights and found more success. Perhaps her biggest breakthrough came in 2020, when she appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” and made her viola part of her routine. It’s a practice she continues today. Her two sets at The Studio at Stanford University are at 7 and 9 p.m. Thursday, and tickets, $15-$45, are going fast. Go to live.stanford.edu.
Free classical concert: Saratoga Symphony, a community orchestra featuring 45 dedicated musicians, plays a free concert of diverse music this weekend led by conductor Jason Klein, who will offer commentary on each piece in the program. It includes Ravel’s “Alborada del gracioso,” Debussy’s “Berceuse héroïque,” Hungarian composer Ernst Dohnányi’s Suite in F# minor and South Bay composer Lee Actor’s 2007 Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, featuring soloist Ross Gershenson. All four pieces were composed between 1909 and 2007. The performance is at 3 p.m. Sunday at West Valley Presbyterian Church, 6191 Bollinger Road in Cupertino. Admission is free, but donations would be appreciated. For details, visit saratogasymphony.org/concerts.
More free art: To experience the vast and varied Bay Area art museum/gallery scene, check out San Francisco Art Week. Running Saturday through Jan. 26, SFAW features special events and programs at some 70 art museums and galleries in the city, East Bay, South Bay and Marin County. And practically all of them are free. The event officially kicks off 6 p.m. Saturday with a celebration at the Institute of Contemporary Art’s new downtown location, although there will be events throughout the day at the Institute of Contemporary Art in San Jose, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Several venues are hosting special events on Monday tied to SF Art Week as well as the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. These include the Museum of the African Diaspora, which will include a performance by the great Bay Area composer and musician Marcus Shelby and his Youth Orchestra as well as the young members of the Prescott Circus. Mostly, however, the event gives everyone a chance to see many incredibly impressive Bay Area museum and gallery offerings. For a complete lineup and more information, go to sfartweek.com
An honored guest: Music director Daniel Hope and the New Century Chamber Orchestra are harnessing the talents of renowned pianist Inon Barnatan, who will join the ensemble as a featured soloist on the two major works on the program. C.P. E. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 3 in D minor is a Baroque masterpiece that will be paired with the 20th century’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor by the great Dmitri Shostakovich, and Barnatan finds “fascinating connections” between the two, including the “bold, unpredictable twists” they both deploy. “I love how these pieces speak to each other across time,” Barnatan says, “and I hope the audience hears both the contrasts and the unexpected common ground between them.” One unusual facet of the Shostakovich work is that it also calls for a solo trumpet to engage in a sort of duel with the piano, and Brandon Ridenour from the American Brass Quintet will step into that role. The program will close with Béla Bártok’s Divertimento for String Orchestra. The concerts take place at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Berkeley’s First Congregational Church, 3 p.m. Saturday in Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center in Rohnert Park and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco. Find tickets, $35-$80, at ncco.org.
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