San Diego Weekend Arts Events: Miss Breed, Public Destruction, 'La Cage Aux Folles,' Zelos Quartet And Women's Film Festival
Speaker 1: 00:00 If you're looking for some art culture and history this weekend, you can find plenty of options in the libraries, reopened art gallery, the signature theater, and an Oceanside museum. Joining me with all the details is KPBS arts editor and producer Julia Dickson Evans, and welcome Julia. Hi Speaker 2: 00:20 Maureen. Thanks for having me now, a Speaker 1: 00:21 Program at the downtown public library reflects on the experiences of Japanese Americans in world war two, but also their lives leading up to, and following it, tell us about the rebellious miss breed. Speaker 2: 00:36 Right? So first on the ground floor, the main entrance to the library, the library called on artwork, San Diego to build this reconstruction of Frank WADA's incarceration, camp barracks water was a local man who just passed away this summer, who had been sent to a Japanese incarceration camp in Arizona in 1942. So right when you walk into the library, you can get a sense for this whole program, then upstairs at the gallery there, the reopening, the art gallery this weekend, which is this beautiful space on the top floor, right above the library's dome. And they're going to be holding an exhibition about the life and work of former city librarian, Clara breed. She was the subject of write to me, which was the one book, one San Diego selection for kids last year during the war. She painstakingly wrote letters to Japanese children, but she also spent her career in the library in advocacy. And they're commemorating that there's collections of photographs and archives and other relics about her work, but also the experience of Japanese Americans. During that period, there'll be an opening reception at the sculpture garden on the ninth floor on Saturday afternoon. And then you can catch the exhibition during their gallery hours. Through the end of January, the free Speaker 1: 01:56 Opening reception at the downtown public library will be from noon to 2:00 PM on Saturday. And the exhibition will be on view Monday through Saturday in the galleries afternoon hours through January 30th, Cigna theater has just reopened with a production of Lacasia full. Tell us about this. Speaker 2: 02:16 This is an eighties Broadway musical adaptation of a French play of the same name. And it was also famously adapted for the big screen in the nineties with the Robin Williams and Nathan Lane movie, the bird cage. So [inaudible] fall centers on a drag club and the gay couple who run it. And then their son who was suddenly engaged to the daughter of someone who's trying to shut the drag club town. So a lot of the plot centers on trying to pass as a somewhat typical couple in order to impress this family, the music and the dance numbers are fantastic. This is we are what we are from the original Broadway cast production [inaudible]. And this was our production that Cigna had barely just had a single preview performance of the, for the pandemic shutdown. So this is a long overdue returned to the stage for them. And when Cigna was the first theater in San Diego, the summer to announce vaccination or negative test requirements for audiences, they actually had to extend the show's run because they had such a popular response to that. So if you want tickets, get them fast. Speaker 1: 04:00 Cigna theater's production of Lacasia phone has a show Saturday at 8:00 PM and Sunday at 2:00 PM. Tonight's show is sold out. The show runs through October 13th with performances Wednesday through Sunday days in the visual art world. There's a chance to see not just one but three solo exhibitions by establish local artists. That's this weekend at the Oceanside museum of art. Tell us about what we can find. Speaker 2: 04:29 Yeah. On Saturday they're opening a new exhibition by Charlotte bird who makes these incredible quilted artworks one in the exhibition as a crane and another, these, these sculptural suspended clouds and this exhibition it's called migrations focuses on cranes, but also the broader picture like climate change in general and habitat destruction also on view at OMA is Melissa Walter's smallest of places which we've talked about before on this show. These are gorgeous conceptual kind of mathematical paintings inspired by DNA forensics. And that's on view through early November, but then closing on Sunday is mark Bryce's love and war, which was originally on view in Tijuana several years ago. These paintings play on American iconography and just kind of the darker side to it all. So there is just a two day overlap of the Charlotte bird and mark Bryce exhibitions. And that's this weekend only Speaker 1: 05:27 Oceanside museum of art is open noon to five Thursday through Saturday and noon to four on Sunday for details on these and more arts events or to sign up for Julia's weekly arts newsletter go to kpbs.org/arts. I've been speaking with KPBS arts editor and producer, Julia Dixon Evans. Julia, thank you so much. Speaker 2: 05:51 Thank you, Maureen. Have a good weekend.
