Bay Area arts: 10 great shows and events to catch this weekend

From soul singer SZA to a planetary symphony and “Barbie” on the really big screen, there is a lot to see and do in the Bay Area this weekend.

SZA set to shine in SF

SZA was nothing short of fantastic on her first 2023 trip through the Bay Area, wowing a packed house at the Oakland Arena in March with more than two dozen terrific numbers on her blockbuster SOS tour.

That offering — which ranked among the very best concerts we’ve seen this year — came seven months after the popular soul singer headlined at the 2022 Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park.

Now, the St. Louis-born talent is returning to the Bay Area for a big show at San Francisco’s Chase Center tonight, an encore on that SOS Tour. The trek supports SZA’s sophomore full-length — also dubbed “SOS” — which debuted atop the Billboard 200 in December on its way to reaching triple-platinum heights. The album features SZA’s first chart-topping single, “Kill Bill,” as well as four other top 10 hits — “Good Days,” “I Hate U,” “Nobody Gets Me” and “Snooze.” (The single “Shirt” only reached No. 11 on the charts, but still ended up being certified double platinum.)

Tickets start at $181 via ticketmaster.com.

— Jim Harrington, Staff

Barbie on the really big screen

Maybe you’ve already seen “Barbie,” but you haven’t seen it like this: Under the stars and on the biggest screen in San Francisco.

Oracle Park is welcoming “Barbie” fans to a special movie night on Friday, where they can view the blockbuster comedy on a screen said to be 45% bigger than the biggest screen in the city. And the timing means guests can preview their Halloween Barbie, Ken, Weird Barbie or Allan costumes before next week’s trick-or-treat.

The ballpark setting offers seating in the stands as well as on the field — and the opportunity to sing and dance along to “Dance the Night,” “Pink” or the “I’m Just Ken” dream ballet.

And there’s more going on than the movie. There will also be a costume contest, pink fireworks, themed snacks and drinks, lots of inventive photo ops and more. Even the Giants’ luxury yacht is getting into the act – the vessel will be re-dubbed the Barbie Dream Boat and will be offering excursions 5-8 p.m. around McCovey Cove.

Oracle Park has hosted public movie nights in the past, including a  5,000-person sing-along for the 2019 Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.” But “Barbie” is huge, with a global box office take of $1.4 billion and critical plaudits for being joyously entertaining, as well as delivering sharp social commentary about gender dynamics and women’s social and economic empowerment. Expect “Barbie” to stay in the conversation, with Oscar buzz circling writer/director Greta Gerwig and stars Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrara and Kate McKinnon

“We are very excited to host Barbie Movie Night on our state-of-the-art scoreboard here at Oracle Park,” said Stephen Revetria, president of Giants Enterprises. “The film truly resonates with the Bay Area community, and we are thrilled to provide a setting for all to celebrate Barbie.”

Giants Enterprises is partnering with the Barbie Dream Gap Project to donate a portion of every ticket sold for the Oracle Park screening to efforts to challenge gender stereotypes and help undo the biases that hold girls back from reaching their full potential.

Details: Doors open 6 p.m. Friday, movie begins at 7:15 p.m.; $24; sfgiants.com/barbie.

— Martha Ross, Staff

A ‘Wimpy Kid’ book tour

Imagine a game show where kids and librarians are the big winners – and instead of lifetime supplies of Turtle Wax, they can score free books and support for local libraries. And you can join the fun.

“Diary of a Wimpy Kid” author Jeff Kinney is celebrating the publication of “No Brainer,” his 18th book in the series, with a traveling game show that will visit 13 West Coast bookstores — including Danville’s Rakestraw Books, San Jose’s Hicklebee’s and Bookshop Santa Cruz this weekend — and provide books, financial support and some getaways for lucky librarians.

“Kids are going to have a chance to win money for their school library or their community library,” says Kinney. “We’ve got hundreds of books to give away.”

The whole extravaganza sounds fun, but it also came out of Kinney’s desire to support the work of some of the book world’s most important people: librarians. Kinney is personally donating $100,000 and dividing it among local libraries along his tour.

Event tickets ($20) include admission for two, a signed copy of “No Brainer” and of course, plenty of fun, kid-friendly activities.

Find details for Bookshop Santa Cruz’s off-site event, which starts at 6 p.m. Friday, at www.bookshopsantacruz.com. Hicklebee’s festivities start at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday; www.hicklebees.com. And Rakestraw’s off-site celebration begins at 11:30 a.m. Sunday; www.rakestrawbooks.com.

— Erik Pedersen, Southern California Newspaper Group

Classical music rendezvous

From Baroque to contemporary, this week’s classical music calendar is packed with music by John Luther Adams, Holst and Schubert – and a new opera made for all ages.

Jack’s back: The acclaimed Jack Quartet returns to San Francisco Performances tonight with a special program featuring “Rising” from Adams’ “Untouched,” along with “Lines Made by Walking” and “The Wind in High Places.” 7:30 Oct. 26, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; $50-$70; sfperformances.org.

‘Music to Accompany a Departure’: Cal Performances welcomes the Los Angeles Master Chorale to Berkeley in a rare performance of Heinrich Schütz’s Baroque-era “Musikalische Exequien” (Music to Accompany a Departure), composed during the 30 Years War. Staged by Peter Sellars and conducted by Grant Gershon, it’s a rare opportunity to experience this moving masterwork on themes of grief and loss. 8 p.m. Oct. 28, Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley campus; $60-$90; calperformances.org.

Otherworldly: This week’s San Francisco Symphony program features “The Planets,” with guest conductor Elim Chan conducting the orchestra and offstage women’s choir in Holst’s otherworldly score; audiences are invited to come early for a 6:30 space-themed talk by Bing Quock of the Morrison Planetarium. The program also includes Britten’s “Illuminations,” featuring tenor Andrew Staples. 7:30 p.m. Oct. 26-28; $39-$150; sfsymphony.org.

Hands-On Opera: That’s the title of Opera Parallèle’s new next-gen initiative, which operagoers can experience this weekend with the first performances of Kenji Oh’s “The Emissary,” a 50-minute opera based on the imaginative, award-winning book by Japanese author Yoko Tawada. 7 p.m. Oct. 27, 1 and 4 p.m. Oct. 28, ODC Theater, San Francisco; $10-$50; free ages 21 and under; operaparallèle.org.

Schubert at Steinway: Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott comes to Cupertino this weekend in an all-Schubert program presented by the Steinway Society; in-person or live-streamed tickets are available. 2:30 Oct. 29, Visual and Performing Arts Center, De Anza College, Cupertino; $45-$70; livestream tickets $25; 408-300-5635; Steinwaysociety.com.

— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent

We ♥ thugs

It feels sometimes like it’s a universal trait – everyone, everywhere, of all walks of life and on all rungs on the socioeconomic ladder, wants to be just a little bit badass. The desire can be even more pronounced when it comes to school-aged youths, whose reputations at school and around the neighborhood can have a visceral impact on their quality of life. That’s the scenario facing the protagonist in comedian and rapper Mélia Mills’ new show, “The Allure of Thug Life,” playing at The Marsh in Berkeley. She’s 15, from an upper middle-class family and struggling to find her way at a school where bullying is a way of life. As she begins to blossom as a rapper, she also becomes torn between the good life and “thug life.”

If this all sounds like a moral-minded after-school TV special, it’s not. “Thug Life” is billed as a “hip-hopsical comedy” that Mills, an Oakland native, debuted at the Hollywood Fringe Festival earlier this year. Festival voters named the show best musical and the Los Angeles Magazine lauded it as “a unique portrayal of being a special kind of high school outcast.”

Details: Performances are 5 p.m. Oct. 28, Nov. 4 and 11; Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston St.; $25-$100; themarsh.org.

— Bay City News Foundation

McDonald’s farm full of free funk

You might not know who Joe Bagale is, but there’s a pretty decent chance you’ve heard one of his songs. The upstate New York-born, Bay Area-based producer, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has a massive musical presence online, and he attained it in a unique fashion. Using the moniker Otis McDonald — the name is said to be a mashup of pop/soul crooner Michael McDonald and psychedelic rock/R&B guitarist Shuggie Ottis – Bagale in 2015 released 80 tracks in YouTube’s copyright-free Audio Library. Within a year or two, the songs had reportedly been downloaded more than 3 million times and incorporated in nearly 4 million videos that over the years have generated more than 7 billion views and uses on social media accounts run by the NBA, People magazine and Comedy Central.

Not surprisingly, the widely disseminated music helped Bagale attract a sizable base of fans, who helped him select the songs for his 2019 album, “People Music.” Since then, Bagale has worked as a session musician, played at clubs over the Bay Area, performed numerous live-streamed shows from his home base at the Hyde Street Studio in San Francisco, and toured with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, among other things. His musical sound, very much in keeping with classic Bay Area style, is a blend of funk, classic soul and R&B and psychedelic rock, and he cites Sly and the Family Stone, Tower of Power and Herbie Hancock as primary influences.

On Oct. 26, Bagale will deliver his music the old-fashioned way  – live and on stage, as part of the Yerba Buena Garden Festival’s final week of performances.

Details: 12:30 p.m. Oct. 26; Yerba Buena Gardens Esplande, Mission Street between 3rd and 4th streets; free ybgfestival.org.

— Bay City News Foundation