Joan Miró’s Femme et oiseau (Gift from Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem, Courtesy of the Manetti Shrem Museum) Like the leafy canopies in our City of Trees, opportunities to catch our region’s creative excellence are rarely more breath-takingly golden than during the fall. From Beethoven to Sondheim, and from Dracula in pointe shoes to Joan Miró in an A-list art exhibit, here are a dozen can’t-miss cultural showstoppers happening around town over the next few months. Keep your calendar handy—we’ve got your ticket to making the most of this singularly sensational season. Raúl Gonzo Through Oct. 20 Take one part Tim Burton, two parts Dr. Seuss, a few dashes of Jetsonian retrofuturism—and then stir it into a vibrant concoction that’s unquestionably all parts Sacramento. Raúl Gonzo—a locally based photographer, filmmaker, artist, stand-up comic and children’s book author-illustrator who has directed more than 400 music videos for acts like the Goo Goo Dolls and Kat Von D—specializes in imaginative subversions of color, culture and the very idea of computer-generated visuals. Instead, his photography features meticulously painted and staged scenes, from a woman working at a bubblegum-colored poolside desk (with bright yellow floaties and office supplies to match) to a pink-hued and Instagram-friendly Pan Am airplane set piece (an installation which invites you to take a seat and strike a pose). This flight of nearly two dozen surrealist images—Gonzo’s first-ever solo museum exhibition—is soaring high at the Crocker Art Museum. crockerart.org Pan Am, Part 1  by Raúl Gonzo (Courtesy of the Crocker Art Museum) Company Sept. 17–22 Set out the hors d’oeuvres, because Broadway Sacramento is about to have Company. This hit musical by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth follows a New Yorker who finds himself single on his 35th birthday, and in Sondheim’s words, faces “the challenge of maintaining relationships in a society becoming increasingly depersonalized.” The show grabbed a whopping 14 Tony nominations (winning six, including best musical) when it debuted in 1970. More than half a century later, Company ’s most recent Broadway revival may have updated the original from a mid-century bachelor to a present-day bachelorette, but the classic, iconic songs remain as timeless, tuneful and showstopping as ever: Numbers like “Being Alive” and “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” helped drive the 2021 iteration to five Tony wins of its own (including best revival of a musical) and raves from crowds and critics alike, with Variety  lauding the production as “silly and sophisticated, intimate and in-tune with the currents of modern life, brilliantly conceived and funny as hell.” broadwaysacramento.com Company  (Photo by Matthew Murphy for Murphy-Made, courtesy of Broadway Sacramento) Light into Density Sept. 19–May 5 Take a plunge into beautiful uncertainty, courtesy of UC Davis’ Manetti ShremMuseum of Art. From the lonely horizon and unsettling forms of Salvador Dalí’s Les désirs inassouvis  to the minimalist maze of lines and colors in Joan Miró’s Femme et oiseau  (shown at the top of the article), the exhibit Light into Density: Abstract Encounters 1920s-1960s brings together 15 pieces from some of the 20th century’s most celebrated artists, provided by museum patron Maria Manetti Shrem from her own collection and curated by two classes of UC Davis art students. Borrowing the first part of its name from an included piece by Spanish painter Antoni Tàpies—a haunting image evoking a dark doorway—the exhibit also features the work of masters like Francis Bacon, Wassily Kandinsky and Max Ernst. “The paintings are intense to look at,” says UCD art professor Alexandra Sofroniew, who oversaw one of the classes. “Yet, the students were very clear that they see hope in the paintings too.” manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu Blind Boys of Alabama Sept. 29 Originating in 1939 from a school group at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind, this evolving ensemble helped define the very idea of gospel music in the 20th century. The Blind Boys of Alabama have since earned enshrinement in the Gospel Hall of Fame, a Grammy lifetime achievement award, and six competitive Grammys—including 2024’s best roots gospel album prize for their latest, Echoes of the South. The quartet brings its rich, riveting harmonies to the Crest Theatre this fall with Bobby Rush, himself a Blues Hall of Famer and the 2024 Grammy winner for best traditional blues album. Expect longtime favorites like “Spirit in the Sky,” “Amazing Grace” and “Way Down in the Hole” (the Blind Boys’ soulful rendition of which you might recognize as the theme from season one of The Wire), as well as other songs and hymns drawn from their decades of singular work. crestsacramento.com Blind Boys of Alabama (Photo by Cole Weber, courtesy of Firefly Media) What the Constitution Means to Me Oct. 2–Nov. 10 An autobiographical show penned by writer and producer Heidi Schreck (Showtime’s Billions), What the Constitution Means to Me  reckons with her youthful days extolling the virtues of the U.S. Constitution in speech competitions. Beginning in the frame of one of those earnest, awkward speeches (“The Constitution is a living document,” Schreck declares, channeling her 15-year-old self. “That is what is so beautiful about it. It is a living, warm-blooded, steamy document!”), adult Heidi then interjects reflections on the history of her own family and the people the Constitution still struggles to protect. “Shattering, galvanizing, and very funny,” The Guardian  raved of the Broadway show, which earned two Tony nominations in 2019 before the play was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist the same year. Now Schreck’s heartfelt dive into the meaning of American democracy and law comes to B Street Theatre, starring founding company member Elisabeth Nunziato and helmed by artistic director Lyndsay Burch. bstreettheatre.org What the Constitution Means to Me  (Illustration by Barry Crider of Lunia Blue, courtesy of The B Street Theatre) READ MORE: Madame Director – B Street Theatre’s new artistic director, Lyndsay Burch London Philharmonic Orchestra Oct. 9 Launching its first American tour in 10 years (and nearly 20 years after last visiting our region), the London Philharmonic Orchestra is set to deliver a grand trio of classics at Davis’ Mondavi Center. An institution of British orchestral music, the Philharmonic began in 1932 and has performed decades’ worth of majestic concerts as the house orchestra at London’s Royal Festival Hall—not to mention some of cinema’s most indelible scores, including Oscar-winners like 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia  and the Lord of the Rings  trilogy. The ensemble’s principal conductor, Edward Gardner, will lead a program that includes Beethoven’s Egmont Overture  and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4  (two spirited works about the struggles against oppression and fate), while 28-year-old violinist Randall Goosby (pictured below)—who has appeared at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center—will provide soloist duties on Samuel Barber’s moving Violin Concerto. mondaviarts.org Randall Goosby (Courtesy of the Mondavi Center) Crumbs from the Table of Joy Oct. 11–Nov. 3 In 1995, years before she earned two Pulitzer Prizes, playwright Lynn Nottage’s Crumbs From the Table of Joy became her first professionally produced piece. Nearly three decades later, Celebration Arts brings Nottage’s slice of 1950s Brooklyn to the River City as the penultimate show in its yearlong “Black Girl Magic” series of plays written and directed by Black women. Crumbs introduces theatergoers to Ernestine Crump, a 17-year-old African American girl attempting to process her mother’s death and a jolting change of scenery from Pensacola, Florida, to her new home in New York City. Local talent Imani Mitchell again occupies the director’s chair after her breakout turn as writer-director of Zora & Langston  at Celebration Arts in March, and company artistic director James Ellison III, co-starring as Ernestine’s father, makes his first return to the stage since his sold-out one-man show Thurgood  last year. celebrationarts.net READ MORE: Sowing the Seeds of Change (One Theater Seat at a Time) – The history and legacy of Celebration Arts The Heart Sellers Oct. 16–Nov. 17 “Lloyd Suh’s plays about the past speak directly to our present,” The New York Times  declared about the celebrated Chinese American playwright’s explorations of race and memory in the United States. Following his Pulitzer-finalist drama The Far Country, Suh’s 2023 The Heart Sellers  explores the repercussions of the Hart-Celler Act—the 1965 law that struck down obstacles preventing largely non-white immigration into America. The comedy chronicles the story of two young women from the Philippines and Korea, who find themselves alone in an unnamed U.S. city on Thanksgiving 1973. Struggling with the meaning of being an immigrant, an American and even just lonely in an unfamiliar place, the pair join each other for a life-changing night of dinner and conversation. A touring co-production of Capital Stage, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company, The Heart Sellers  is directed by Jennifer Chang—herself the daughter of Chinese-Filipino immigrants, and the director who developed the show with Suh (pictured below) for its world premiere at Milwaukee Rep last year. capstage.org Suh Lloyd (Photo by Karin Shook, courtesy of Capital Stage) Life on our Planet Oct. 20 A peek behind the scenes of a wild world—both modern-day and going back several billion years—is headed to Folsom’s Harris Center. After eight Emmy-nominated seasons as the showrunner and executive producer for Mythbusters, documentarian Dan Tapster led the team behind Netflix’s 2023 Life on Our Planet, a Morgan Freeman-narrated hybrid project of real footage—remote locations and animals filmed everywhere from an actively erupting volcano in Iceland to the isolated forests of Komodo Island in Indonesia—combined with CGI elements to depict T-Rexes, woolly mammoths and other creatures of a lost, prehistoric planet. (Not to be outdone: The very first plant cells to develop photosynthesis also make an appearance.) With footage and personal making-of stories, expect Tapster to take audience questions and guide attendees through the years of research and collaboration (including with filmmakers like Steven Spielberg) that went into telling an earthly tale that goes back eons. harriscenter.net Life on Our Planet  (Courtesy of Netflix and the Harris Center) The Marriage of Figaro Oct. 26 Whether you’re an opera aficionado or simply know this 1786 comedy’s lilting melodies from films like The Shawshank Redemption, there’s no denying the enduring power and influence of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. The Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera will transport audience members to Seville for a fully-staged tale of operatic follies—complete with schemes, disguises and mistaken identities—courtesy of dozens of stage performers and musicians. The production at the SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center kicks off the SP&O’s 10th season, led by local talents like soprano Rena Harms as Countess Almaviva and internationally renowned standouts like bass-baritone Richard Ollarsaba as Figaro; look for Bay Area conductor Emily Senturia—a veteran of operas from Atlanta to Houston, San Francisco and more—at the podium. And while Morgan Freeman’s character Red in Shawshank  may have famously confessed he had “no idea, to this day, what those two Italian ladies were singing about,” count on English supertitles to help the rest of us follow along. sacphilopera.org ¡Pleibol! Oct. 26–Jan. 19 Take us out to the ball game! A touring exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution, ¡Pleibol!: In the Barrios and the Big Leagues  arrives at downtown’s California Museum to showcase an underrepresented side of the great American pastime. Latinx community legends from around the United States take the field here through rarely seen images, like those of Negro League and Mexican League slugger Buck Leonard (recently recognized by Major League Baseball as having the eighth-best batting average in the history of the sport) and pioneering, Spanish-language Dodgers broadcaster (and 1998 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee) Jaime Jarrin. This bilingual exhibition’s lesser-known record of baseball in the barrio unfolds through more photos and artifacts collected from Latinx communities across the country—from archival shots of Kansas City’s Lady Aztecas team from 1939, to a La Puente, California, child’s nearly 60-year-old baseball glove re-stitched with shoestring (pictured below)—that celebrate baseball’s history and ultimate role in bringing marginalized communities together. californiamuseum.org Gift of Ernie Martinez, National Museum of American History, and courtesy of the California Museum Dracula Nov. 1–3 A ballet with bite? Consider us enthralled. Twenty-eight years on from the U.K. debut of this pointe-shoes-meets-pointed-teeth adaptation of Bram Stoker’s gothic classic, choreographer Michael Pink’s theatrical ballet—featuring Count Dracula’s blood-sucking exploits rendered romantically through dance—continues its dark flight around the world to the SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center. More than 40 Sacramento Ballet dancers (the troupe’s full professional company, as well as a portion of its second company) will take the stage over Halloween weekend, kicking off the institution’s landmark 70th season with a production that executive director Anthony Krutzkamp—who performed as the alluring title villain with the Kansas City Ballet in 2014—likens to the scope of an opera. “The company has never produced a work with this grandeur,” says Krutzkamp, citing the unique intricacies of costumes and complexity of sets. “I imagine it as our coming-out party. It is our time to show that we can and have done this.” sacballet.org Dracula  (Photo by Tony Nguyen, courtesy of the Sacramento Ballet) For even more events happening this fall, hit the town with Out and About for September and October 2024