Spring 2023 Season of Music, Dance, and Theatre

The Presidio Theatre’s Spring  2023 season of music, dance and theater will feature nine diverse events from February 26 through July 23 on the historic Main Post in San Francisco. Featured artists and groups include Lúnasa, ShadowLight and Paul Dresher Ensemble, Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids, Robert Moses’ Kin, SFArtsED Players, Lamplighters, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Music Of Remembrance  and La Tania Flamenco. Premieres include new works by Idris Ackamoor, Shadowlight and Paul Dresher Ensemble, composer Jake Heggie, flamenco choreographer La Tania, Lamplighters, and more. 

Afro-futurist jazz trail-blazer Idris Ackamoor celebrates his 50th year, Music of Remembrance presents the premiere of a new opera by Jake Heggie and Gene  Scheer, ShadowLight and Paul Dresher Ensemble collaborate on the premiere of a  new work for music and shadow puppets, La Tania creates a new multi-media work  inspired by an ancient Egyptian Temple in Madrid, SFArtsED Players stage a new  production of Disney’s Newsies, Robert Moses presents the premieres of new work and Lamplighters unveils the premiere of a new work as part of its operetta  commissioning project. 

“This season we celebrate compelling and important San Francisco legacy artists,” says Presidio Theatre Executive Director Robert Martin. “These innovative artists  have shaped the artistic and creative landscape in the Bay Area and beyond with works of insight, inspiration, challenge and change. Join us as these artists reveal the next chapters of their work.” 

 

Presidio Theatre Spring 2023 Lineup 

All performances at the historic Presidio Theatre, 99 Moraga Avenue, San Francisco 

 

 

Lúnasa
Live in concert!

Sunday, February 26, 7:30pm
$15-$45 

Named for an ancient Celtic harvest festival in honor of the Irish god Lugh, Lúnasa was formed in 1997 from members of some of the greatest Irish groups of the  previous decade. From the start, the band’s complex arrangements and unique sound reshaped the boundaries of traditional music and energized audiences the  world over. Lunasa’s current lineup features Trevor Hutchinson, who achieved fame as the bassist with the The Waterboys: piper Cillian Vallely was a member of  Riverdance and has recorded with Bruce Springsteen: Flute player Kevin Crawford,  considered one of Ireland’s greatest flute players, was a member of Moving Cloud: award-winning fiddler Sean Smyth, who performed with Donal Lunny’s legendary  Coolfin and accordionist Alan Kelly; Colin Farrell is a multiple award winning fiddler, who has toured with Project West, Grada and Michael McGoldrick: Guitarist Ed Boyd  made a name for himself in the UK folkscene with bands such as Flook, Kate Rusby, and Cara Dillon. 

 

ShadowLight & Paul Dresher Ensemble
Soujourner ZY

Thursday, March 2, 8pm (preview)
Friday, March 3, 8pm
Saturday, March 4, 8pm
Sunday, March 5, 2pm
$15-$25

An ethereal, entrancing voyage past the boundaries of the imagination in shadows,  music and spoken word directed by Larry Reed, designed by I Made Moja and Ya  Wen Chien, music composed by Paul Dresher. Co-produced by ShadowLight, Paul  Dresher Ensemble and the Presidio Theatre. 

In a not-so-distant future, the Earth Federation has sent out spaceships to scour  the universe for the resources necessary to sustain an environmentally depleted and damaged Earth. We follow the mission of Sojourner ZY, who pilots the last surviving spacecraft, as he communicates with Earth Federation’s Mission Control and with his wife scientist and devoted children, who struggle to survive on Earth’s ever-more precarious environment. And as he desperately tries to sack  strange new worlds of their resources, he confronts uncomfortable choices and  unforeseen consequences.

Audiences will be surrounded in a primal, futuristic landscape of sound from composer Dresher’s invented instruments, cinematic-scale shadow puppet imagery and a fantastical story that follows the interplanetary journey of the space traveler Sojourner ZY. On his journey, he encounters a dizzying array of uniquely adapted  and strange civilizations. The story is told via projected and live shadow sequences  with dialogue, and songs and seeks to address vital issues of all time—race,  gender, identity and the environmental crisis. 

 

 

Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids
Afro Futuristic Dreams 

Friday, March 17, 8:00pm
Saturday, March 18, 8:00pm
FREE!

Celebrating the music and legacy of Idris Ackamoor as he performs for the 50th year with his afro-jazz band The Pyramids. Ackamoor has revived the band for this  special tour to unveil music from their upcoming commemorative double vinyl  album Afro Futuristic Dreams, scheduled for a 2023 release through Strut Records. The Pyramids will be coming to the Presidio Theatre hot off of a European tour, highlighted by a residency and special exhibit at the Le Guess Who? festival in the  Netherlands. 

 

Roberts Moses’ KIN
2023 Home Season 

Friday, March 24, 7pm
Saturday, March 25, 7pm
Sunday, March 26, 2pm
$8-$45 

Celebrating its 28th season, San Francisco-based Robert Moses’ KIN (RMK) is  known for eclectic movement vocabulary, demanding choreography, ferocious  dancing, and provocative themes. RMK returns to the Presidio Theatre with a  program choreographed entirely by Artistic Director Robert Moses, including a world  premiere, a west coast premiere, and the revival of Moses’ classic, The President’s Daughter, a work about the double standards of race, gender and power upheld by  various men of American political prominence. 

 

 

SFArtsED Players
Disney’s Newsies 

Friday, April 21, 7pm
Saturday, April 22, 3 & 7pm
Sunday, April 23, noon followed by closing-day gala
$20-$100

They delivered the papers, until they made the headlines. The SFArtsED Players  launch their 22ndseason with Disney’s Newsies, the Tony Award-winning musical based on the beloved 1992 movie. Audiences and critics alike are calling it “a  musical worth singing about!” (The New York Times). Filled with one heart pounding number after another, it’s a high-energy explosion of song and  dance. Now is the time to seize the day with Newsies, the captivating story, based on true events, of a band of underdogs who become unlikely heroes when they  stand up to the most powerful men in New York. It’s a rousing tale about  fighting for what’s right and staying true to who you are. 

Lamplighters Music Theatre
By Georges! A Day in the Life of the Legendary Chevalier de St Georges

Saturday, May 6, 2pm 
Sunday, May 7, 2pm
$31-$80

Lamplighters is thrilled to present the first production from its operetta commission project. The first known classical composer of African descent, the Chevalier was  the head of the Paris Opera and Symphony, a virtuoso violinist and an expert swordsman. They present a one-act comedic operetta depicting him on a single day  at the height of his powers and challenges. 

New Century Chamber Orchestra
Points of Origin 

Saturday, May 13, 7:30pm
$15-$67.50 

New Century Chamber Orchestra presents a series of musical journeys inspired by ideas of the past. Two works explore America’s identity as a melting pot, including Jessie Montgomery’s Banner, a reimagining of the United States national anthem, and Nico Muhly’s Stranger, a song cycle with tenor Nicholas Phan that reflects on the American immigrant experience. British composers offer masterful tributes to their predecessors in two landmark works from the 20th century: Ralph Vaughan  Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge. The world premiere of a new work by Hannah Kendall rounds out the program. 

Music of Remembrance 
Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer
Before It All Goes Dark and Another Sunrise 

Wednesday, May 24, 7:30pm
$15-$90 

The world premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s new opera Before It All Goes Dark, commissioned by Music of Remembrance, was inspired by a remarkable true  story reported by Howard Reich in the Chicago Tribune. It shares the transformative journey of an ailing Vietnam war veteran who learns decades later  that he is the heir to a priceless art collection stolen by the Nazis. His arduous  voyage to Prague in search of this legacy leads him to embrace an identity that had  been hidden from him, and through art he discovers a deeper truth in his life. Featuring bass-baritone Ryan McKinny and mezzo soprano Megan Marino. This new piece will be paired in an exciting double bill with a new production of Heggie and  Scheer’s Another Sunrise. Starring soprano Caitlin Lynch, this is an intimate portrait  of an Auschwitz survivor’s struggle to find words capable of describing harrowing, unimaginable situations to people who weren’t there. Together, the two operas are a profound tribute to the restorative power of memory. 

 

 

La Tania
Solaz 

Friday, July 21, 7pm
Saturday, July 22, 7pm
Sunday, July 23, 4pm
$15-$45  

Tickets

The world premiere of a multimedia flamenco experience, co-produced by extraordinary flamenco artist La Tania and the Presidio Theatre. Solaz is  choreographed by La Tania, with artistic direction by La Tania and Adrián Arias. The  show features flamenco dancers Melissa Cruz, Cristina Hall, La Tania, and Mizuho Sato, with musical composer and guitarist José Luis de la Paz, singer José Cortés, and oud player Gary Haggerty. Inspired by the Temple of Debod, which was built in the second century BC and  rescued during the flooding of Nubia, when Egypt was constructing the Aswan Dam in the 1960’s. This ancient Temple was cut into pieces and transported to Madrid, where it was reconstructed and now serves as a beacon of cultural survival in the face of massive global displacement. With breathtaking dance and music, intertwined with poetic visual imagery, this sensory journey evokes both personal and universal movement as related to hope, renewal and impermanence. 

PHOTO: RJ Muna

 

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About the Presidio Theatre 

The historic Presidio Theatre was built in 1939 by the U.S. Army with funding from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Theatre is located next to the  Parade Grounds on the Main Post of the Presidio of San Francisco in the Golden  Gate National Recreation Area. In 2017, after lying vacant for 25 years, the Theatre  underwent a $44 million renovation transforming it into a contemporary performing  arts center through the vision and generosity of the Margaret E. Haas Fund. The  Theatre is now a home for a growing number of beloved San Francisco Bay Area artists and events including the Children’s Theatre Association of San Francisco and  an annual holiday show called Panto in the Presidio. In addition to presenting public performances and films, the Theatre offers free events for 7000+ public school  children and teachers each year, hosts community meetings and serves as a rental venue. Learn more by visiting www.presidiotheatre.org or by following  @presidiotheatre on Instagram. 

 

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