Performance

In our performance series, the JCC presents an array of stage plays, solo performances, works-in-progress and variety shows. While many of our stage productions are cutting-edge and experimental, the JCC also presents a repertoire of traditional theater programs. The eclecticism of the performing arts programs featured at the Prism Stage is unique in the East Bay.

Madhouse Rhythm Written and performed by Joshua Walters, Madhouse Rhythm is an autobiographical collage based on one man’s experience with madness. Walters spills forth the inner workings of the mind as he recreates psychotic breakdowns and copes with the aftermath of recovery onstage. The piece stitches together a variety of styles, including hip hop theater, standup comedy and spoken word. Walters performed a work-in-progress version of the play in March at the JCC, and returns in May for the full-length premiere. Joshua Walters is a member of the Berkeley Poetry Slam Team, the San Francisco State Speech Team and the Bay Area Beatbox collective The Vowel Movement. Madhouse Rhythm is his first full-length solo production. “Joshua Walters finds the absurd in the everyday, magic in the mundane and playful humor in basic biological functions.” –Charles Ellik, Slammaster

Sunday May 25, 8:00pm Buy tickets here

$8 member $12 general

Václav Havel’s Vanek Eastenders Repertory Company returns to the JCC with three Vanek Plays: Audience, Unveiling, and Protest by former president of the Czech Republic Václav Havel. This trilogy centers on the author’s fictional alter ego Ferdinand Vanek, who, like the playwright-turned-statesman Havel, worked in a brewery before being jailed as a political dissident. Imprisoned for four years in the mid-1970s, Havel wrote Audience and Unveiling after his release to entertain a small gathering of fellow writers, all of whom had their work banned in their native countries. In Audience, Vanek has a bleakly absurd and comical encounter with his boss; in Unveiling he visits a frighteningly conformist and avidly consumerist couple; and in Protest, Vanek confronts his friend, a successful TV writer, to convince him to sign an anti-government petition. Special Program On Monday May 5 and Wednesday May 7, Audience will be presented together with readings of works by Pavel Kahout, Pavel Landovsky and Jirí Dienstbier, playwrights who all devised their own dramas about Vanevk. These readings will be followed by a moderated discussion about the role of the artist in a politically repressive regime. The regular performance price applies to the special program.

May 1, 3, 4, 15, 17, 18 Thursdays and Saturdays at 8:00pm Sundays at 2:00pm and 7:00pm Buy tickets here

Special Program: May 5, May 7 at 8:00pm $15 member/KQED/student/senior $20 general Buy tickets here

Stateless In this work of hip hop theater, Dan Wolf, the great grand nephew of Ludwig Wolf (writer of Hamburg, Germany’s most famous song, Een echt Hamborger Jung), returns to Hamburg to make a film about his family. Using tatter found in his grandmother’s basement–a picture of two dockworkers, a costume, a long letter from his grandfather–Wolf links his Jewish past with his present search for self. Through a pastiche of rhyme, dialogue, and song we are led from Hamburg to Shanghai, New York and San Francisco through anti-Semitism, the assimilation of Jewish culture, and the rediscovery of an artistic legacy. The JCC’s performance mixes select scenes from the play with excerpt from the film, providing a unique cross-medium journey that is not to be missed. A Q&A will follow the show. “When people ask me why I do what I do I reply ‘It’s in my blood.’ Iam Leopold and Ludwig and James and Donut. German and Jewish. Strong and liberated. Feared and oppressed. A seeker of beauty, of truth, and of tradition, both theatrical and Jewish.” –Dan Wolf

Sunday May 11, 8:00pm Buy tickets here

$10 member/student/senior $15 general

Angry Black White Boy Prolific actor, rapper and playwright Dan Wolf re-imagines Adam Manbach’s provocative novel Angry Black White Boy in a hybrid of theatrical storytelling, poetry, rapping, beatboxing, ballet and hip-hop dance. Blending this kinetic palate of forms, the story exposes a young Jewish man’s internal/external struggle to efface his race and historical identity. Looking for meaning outside of Judaism, especially within the hip-hop world surrounding him, he refashions his guilt and shame to cloak himself in the knowledge and expertise of a culture he adopts as his own. Wolf’s collaborators include actor/musician Tommy Shepherd, choreographer/dancer/actor Keith Pinto and director Sean San José. A Q&A with Adam Mansbach and the cast will follow the performance.

Saturday June 14, 8:00pm Buy tickets here

$10 member $15 general

The Mortified Guide to… Love, Sex and Death East Bay Premiere Newsweek gushes that it’s “a cultural phenomenon!” The Onion raves, “Unbearably intimate...completely funny!” and Glamour chimes in, “Hilarious and humiliating.” Now, the Mortified storytelling series finally touches down spectacularly for the first time ever in the East Bay. The Mortified Guide to … Love, Sex and Death is an irreverent, angst-filled exploration of life’s most confounding childhood mysteries. Witness adults sharing their own adolescent journals, letters, poems, lyrics, home movies and more…for an audience of total strangers. The show cracks the lid off our cultural shoebox to expose first-hand tales of unrequited flirtations, fears and faith. The evening promises to be painfully funny, bawdy, cheeky and, at times, starkly poignant. Be prepared for some graphic language. Come at 7:00pm and enjoy a glass of wine or beer. Non-alcoholic drinks and snacks will also be available. Watch the promo

Saturday July 12, 8:00pm Buy tickets here

$10 member $15 general

The Return of The W. Kamau Bell Curve Now with 37% more Barack Obama! Just like Led Zeppelin and the Boston Celtics, racism continues to make a comeback in America. White people haven’t talked this bad about un-white people since Martin Luther King had that dream. Since The W. Kamau Bell Curve opened last October, racism has seemed to redouble its efforts. The co-discoverer of DNA said that Europeans are smarter than Africans; Dog the Bounty Hunter tried to break Michael Richards’ record for saying the most ‘N’ words in one breath; and a golf commentator told a lynching joke about her friend Tiger Woods. Somehow in the middle of all this, America might elect its first black president…unless Fox News has something to say about it. Well, W. Kamau Bell is mad as hell and he’s not going smile politely anymore as his un-black friends go, “Sarah Silverman isn’t racist. She’s ironic.” The W. Kamau Bell Curve is one part diatribe, one part manifesto, and several parts funny. This past winter, the show played to sold out houses at the JCC and elsewhere, and now it’s back by popular demand and critical acclaim in three locations throughout the Bay Area. Now that The Curve has moved from monthly to weekly, it will be as fresh with as the news it skewers. Artist Bio W. Kamau Bell has frequently appeared on Comics Unleashed and Comedy Central. In 2005 he was selected to perform at the prestigious Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal; he was the only comedian invited to perform on both The New Faces Show and The Best of The Uptown Comics Show at the festival. “W. Kamau Bell plays against type and comes with not only the insights you wish you had spewed first but also the wit.”— Kimberly Chun, SF Bay Guardian “Smart, stylish, and very much in the mold of politically outspoken comedians like Dave Chappelle and Margaret Cho, Bell’s pissed off about recent celebrity racism...[he] manages to make jokes out of the whole situation, while remaining completely furious.” —Hiya Swanhuyser, SF Weekly Watch the promo

Shelton Theater, San Francisco May 8, 15, 22, 29, June 5, 12 Buy tickets here Pro Arts, Oakland August 2, 3, 9, 10 Buy tickets here JCC East Bay, Berkeley August 16, 17, 23, 24 Buy tickets here

$15 member $20 general $10 each if you come with a friend of a different race

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