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Freebie of the week: Nothing says summer quite like free outdoor Shakespeare and one of the Bay Area’s best-loved purveyors swings into action this weekend. The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival is embarking on its 42nd season of Free Shakespeare in the Park. This year’s production, running Saturday through Sept. 8 at three outdoor sites, is “The Tempest.” It’s believed that the Bard penned the play around 1610-11, and that it represents one of the last plays he wrote on his own. It centers on a father (Prospero) and daughter (Miranda) who are set adrift at sea by Prospero’s jealous brother. They land on an island filled with strange things and magical creatures and remain there until a tempest washes ashore Prospero’s brother and his henchmen. Filled with magic, music, intrigue, boisterous (and often silly) sailors, revenge, loyalty and forgiveness, not to mention Act 4’s famous “play within a play” wedding ceremony; the tragicomedy “asks the audience to find the humanity in all the characters they meet,” according to S.F. Shakespeare Festival organizers. “The Tempest” opens 6 p.m. Saturday at Cupertino’s Memorial Park Amphitheater, 21163 Anton Way, and plays there through Aug. 4. Follow-up runs are at Redwood City’s Red Morton Park, Vera Avenue and Valota Road, Aug. 10-25, and at the Jerry Garcia Amphitheatre at San Francisco’s McLaren Park, 40 John F. Shelley Drive, Aug. 31-Sept. 8. Performances are at 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. More information is at sfshakes.org.
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Latin festival in the East Bay: The Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek this week is hosting a celebration of Latin music, dance, art and comedy that runs through Saturday and features a wide range of A-List performers. Dubbed Fiesta Cultural, the series features the famed Ballet Hispanico (7:30 p.m. Wednesday); the family-friendly music act Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band (10 a.m. Thursday), a free show by Colombian singer-musician Chika Di (5:30 p.m. Thursday), the renowned Spanish Harlem Orchestra (7:30 p.m. Friday), a street fair (noon to 7 p.m. Saturday) with live music, dance, food and other fun stuff, and a Latinx Comedy Night (7:30 p.m. Saturday) featuring Mean Dave, Ashley Monique, Alejandro Ochoa, Rudy Ortiz and Frida Sierra. Admission to the street fair is free; the ticketed items run $14-$121. More information and tickets are available at www.lesherartscenter.org.
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Blues royalty: Stanford Live is serving up a special show on Friday for fans of the blues. And it’s one of those concerts where you will want to be there for the opening act. But let’s start with the main act: Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr., aka Taj Mahal. The 82-year-old New York-born singer, songwriter and musician is generally defined as a blues artist even if he has spent much of his career redefining what a blues artist could be. By adding elements of reggae, Cajun, Latin, funk, Pacific islander music and more to his sonic repertoire, Taj Mahal either rewrote the playbook on the blues or created his own musical idiom. Raised in a music-loving family, Taj Mahal studied ethnomusicology in college and has utilized a natural thirst for learning throughout his career. The four-time Grammy winner with more than two dozen studio and live albums to his credit is back on the road; he stops at Frost Amphitheater at Stanford University at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Opening the show is the Elvin Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite Duo, a pairing of a famed blues guitarist (Bishop) and legendary harmonica player that could easily be headlining. Tickets are $15-$165; go to live.stanford.edu.
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An afternoon at the opera: Join the nimble members of San Francisco’s plucky little Pocket Opera cast as they gather to sing—in English, as late founder Donald Pippin has recast it—one of the most beloved operas of all time. Giacomo Puccini’s “La Bohème,” the one about the poverty-plagued but fun-loving young Parisians in a garret apartment in the dead of winter, takes to the stage at the Berkeley Hillside Club at 2 p.m. Sunday in a co-production with the Cinnabar Theater. Soprano Diana Skavronskaya stars as Mimi, she of the frozen little hand, and Nicholas Huff is the poet Rodolfo, the guy who is determined to warm her up. His roommates are Daniel Yoder as the painter Marcello, Michael Kuo as the musician Schaunard and Don Hoffman as the philosopher Colline. Melissa Sondhi sings in the pivotal role of the flirtatious Musetta. Find tickets, $33-$82, at www.pocketopera.org or call (415) 972-8934 weekdays between noon and 4 p.m.
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That’s an invitation: You’re being beckoned to roll up for the Classical Mystery Tour, a symphonic sendup of the Beatles with Martin Herman conducting the San Francisco Symphony and four dudes gussied up like John, Paul, George and Ringo in their neon Sgt. Pepper outfits for at least part of the concert. The tribute band known as the Classical Mystery Tour has been performing since 1996 all over the world, and the current lineup of the Fab Four features Jim Owen as John, Tony Kishman as Paul, Robbie Berg as George and Chris McBurney as the irrepressible Ringo. They hit Davies Hall in San Francisco at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, opening with a set that replicates the one the Beatles began their first North American tour with in August of 1964 at our very own Cow Palace in San Francisco. As they move on with the program, they’ll be dipping into selections from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “The White Album,” “Abbey Road” and “Let It Be.” Tickets are $55-$175 at (415) 864-6000 and sfsymphony.org/mysterytour.
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