The Fringe marches on: Although Francisco’s downtown and theater scene have seen tough times in recent years, consider this: The annual Fringe Festival is still on. Exit Theatre, which saw one of its principal Tenderloin venues shuttered in 2022, presents the 34th iteration of the festival, which always wonderfully has matched its environs. It’s a little rough and a little ramshackle, but a magnet for the kinds of artists and audiences who thrill in the energy, passion and unpredictability of live performance. This year’s festival runs Friday through Aug. 24, with performances at the Taylor Street Theatre, 277 Taylor St. The collection of solo and small-group performances in the Fringe Festival ranges from the hilarious to the harrowing. Among the shows are “Saturday Night Live” alum Molly Shannon’s solo show “Oh Johnny,” about a down-on-her-luck mystic and medium who ventures into the spirit realm looking for answers. Described as a “clown play,” reflecting on Shannon’s background as a clown performer, it’s onstage at 8:30 p.m. Aug. 8, 5 p.m. Aug. 16 and 12:30 p.m. Aug. 17. Also on tap is popular Kurt Bodden performing his third solo show “I’m Mad as Hell and I’m Going to Take It Just a Little Bit Longer,” in which the self-help satirist “cheerfully draws from an inner wellspring of unresolved rage,” at 9:30 p.m. Aug. 9 and 5 p.m. Aug. 24. Yes, it can be a crap shoot, but for fans of live theater, there’s nothing more “live theater-ish” than the Fringe Festival. Most shows run $15-$20; go to www.theexit.org.
“Two Gentlemen” in town: Free Shakespeare in the Park, presenting free, in-person outdoor theater performances is 43! This year’s presentation is an adaptation of the classic romantic comedy “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.” It’s about the journey of two young men from a small, simple, traditional Midwestern town to California, with its alluring promise and impending challenges. The friends “confront their inner conflicts as they are seduced by the possibilities of love, success and reinvention,” say organizers of the show, which is directed by Ely Sonny Qrquiza. Quickly upcoming performances are in Red Morton Park in Redwood City at 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Aug. 16-17 and Aug. 23-24. The show then moves to San Francisco’s McLaren Park on Aug. 30-Sept. 1 and Sept. 6-7; then to San Francisco’s Sue Bierman Park near Embarcadero Plaza on Sept. 13-14 and Sept. 20-21. For information, visit sfshakes.org or redwoodcity.org.
A last hurrah: Music@Menlo’s venerable chamber music festival is winding down, but there is one more impressive program on its lineup for two performances. This year’s iteration has presented music composed for duos, trios, quartets and quintets, so it comes as no surprise that the programs designed for the final performances at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Stent Family Hall and Saturday in the Spieker Center for the Arts, both in Atherton, are dubbed “Six to Eight,” because they offer compositions for sextet and octet. Brahms’ magisterial String Sextet in B-flat Major kicks things off, followed by Jorg Widmann’s “180 beats per minute” from 1993 (which sounds like it might be a rather lively work), with Mendelssohn’s String Octet in E-flat Major bringing things to a close. Performers include Benjamin Beilman, a winner of major international prizes at competitions in Montreal and Indianapolis, who will be joined by fellow violinists Erin Keefe, Jessica Lee, Kristin Lee, Richard Lin, Julian Rhee and Arnaud Sussman; violists Paul Neubauer and Masumi Rostad; and cellists Dmitri Atapine, Nicholas Canellakis, David Finckel and Clive Greensmith. Find tickets, $25-$87, at music@menlo.org.
Going for Baroque: For those who gravitate to the music that was all the rage in the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries, American Bach has just launched a festival with concerts continuing through Sunday that will fully satisfy your cravings. Led by artistic director and conductor Jeffrey Thomas, the American Bach Soloists present works by that great master of the Baroque era and many of his contemporaries—Telemann, Vivaldi, Geminiani, Handel and Purcell among them—in two venues at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Sol Joseph Recital Hall and the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall. Participating musicians include violinist Tatiana Chulochnikova, flautist Bethanne Walker, harpsichordist Corey Jamason, cellist Joseph Howe and many others, and at the finale in Hume hall on Sunday, the ensemble will be joined by students of the American Bach Academy for a program including three Bach cantatas. Performance times are 7:30 p.m. except for the finale, which is a 4 p.m. matinee, and tickets, $20-$65, are available at americanbach.org.
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