What's on at Bay Area Museums This Fall

Looted and Firmament

Two new shows open September 5th at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Firmament, the first solo show by artist Nicki Green, explores identity, transformation, and tradition through the spiritual concept of the firmament, the dome separating earth from the heavens. In Looted, four contemporary artists from around the world recreate master works—by the likes of Raphael and Rubens—that were stolen by the Nazis during the occupation of Poland. Then, in erasing them, the exhibit challenges the meanings of ownership and recovery.

// Firmament is on display through February 2, 2025, Looted is on display through July 27, 2025 at the CJM, 736 Mission St. (SoMa), thecjm.org.

Hallyu! The Korean Wave

The Asian Art Museum’s upcoming Hallyu! The Korean Wave explores South Korean works of art, film, television, fashion, and beauty that have successfully captured the 21st century zeitgeist. With close to 200 artifacts ranging from K-pop to K-drama, this exhibition illustrates the creativity of Asia’s most massive contemporary cultural wave as it continues to transcend traditional global boundaries.

// Hallyu! The Korean Wave is on display September 27 through January 6, 2025 at the Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St. (Civic Center), asianart.org.

Consuelo Kanaga: Catch the Spirit + Amy Sherald: American Sublime

Although she was one of the first women photojournalists to be hired by a major newspaper, artist Consuelo Kanaga has rarely gotten the credit she’s due. SFMOMA’s retrospective examines Kanaga’s six decades behind the lens documenting poverty, racism, labor rights, and inequality, beginning with her work at the SF Chronicle in the 1910s. Catch the Spirit is followed iby the arrival of more than 45 paintings by Amy Sherald, the artist best known for her portraits of Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor, in the most comprehensive presentation of her work to date.

// Consuelo Kanaga: Catch the Spirit runs September 28 through February 9, 2025, and Amy Sherald: American Sublime runs November 16 through March 9, 2025 at SFMOMA, 151 3rd St. (SoMa), sfmoma.org.

Tamara de Lempicka

Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka’s work helped to define the Art Deco movement with paintings that exuded cool elegance and the vitality of post-WWI Paris. The first major U.S. retrospective of her work reveals de Lempicka’s trailblazing style, from her genre-exemplifying 1920s post-Cubist oils to her unique nudes and still lifes.

// Tamara de Lempicka runs October 12 through February 9, 2025 at the de Young, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr. (Golden Gate Park), famsf.org.

Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection

Juxtaposing contemporary practice with groundbreaking historical works, BAMPFA’s upcoming exhibition Making Their Mark amplifies the voices and visions of women artists in the Shah Garg Collection. The show will include more than 70 works spanning eight decades by Mary Corse, Trude Guermonprez, Mary Heilman, and other notables—many with deep ties to the Bay Area. Among them are a wide range of craft techniques, alternative materials, influences, and methodologies that challenge art making conventions and redefine their patriarchally-prescribed definitions.

Shipyard Open Studios' 40th Anniversary

Celebrate four decades of the Shipyard with history tours led by artist Stacey Carter, more than 130 open artist studios, live music, a silent auction, beer garden, and surprises still to be announced.

// Preview parties begin on Friday October 18th; October 19-20 at Hunters Point Shipyard, 451 Galvez Ave. and Islais Creek Studios, 1 Rankin St. (Bayview-Hunter's Point), shipyardartists.com

Tony-Winning Theater + Dramatic First Thursdays

Unstaged: Live on Mid-Market

SF’s Mid-Market theater district is activating a new block-long arts event celebrating live performance. At Unstaged, a free event taking place over three consecutive first Thursdays, vacant storefronts and sidewalks will light up with more than 20 experimental and immersive acts that, on its inaugural night, include salsa and cumbia classes and a vertical takeover by gravity-defying troupe Bandaloop. Even SFMTA is getting in on the action, transforming the F-train into a mobile jazz venue, The Hotsy Totsy Club.

// September 5, October 3, and November 7 from 4pm to 7pm on Market Street between 5th and 6th Streets, marketstreetarts.org

Noël Coward’s Private Lives

Noël Coward’s wry comedy about marriage and passion debuts on stage at A.C.T.’s Toni Rembe Theater this September. Set in 1930s Argentina, Private Lives tells the story of a divorced couple who finds themselves honeymooning with their new spouses in adjacent rooms at the same hotel through sensual tango dancing and spiky repartee. Director KJ Sanchez calls it a “saucy, brassy, and rude” battle of wills that’s “as much about fighting as it is making love.”

// September 12 through October 6 at The Toni Rembe Theater; 415 Geary St. (Union Square), act-sf.org

The Play That Goes Wrong

This 1920s whodunit combines Monty Python-esque comedy with Sherlock Holmes-style investigation when a troupe of actors debut the opening night of their show, The Murder at Haversham Manor. The nonstop mayhem is so ridiculously entertaining, it’ll have you crying with laughter.

// September 21 through November 9 at San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St. (Union Square), sfplayhouse.org

Kimberly Akimbo

Winner of five Tony Awards including Best Musical, Kimberly Akimbo follows the heartbreakingly funny story of 16-year-old Kim, who's recently moved with her family to suburban New Jersey. Navigating family dysfunction, first love, a rare genetic condition and the threat of felony charges, Kim is determined to find happiness against all odds in this show with lyrics by Shrek’s David Lindsay-Abaire, score by Fun Home’s Jeanine Tesori, and choreography by Dear Evan Hansen’s Danny Mefford.

// November 6 through December 1 at Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St. (Union Square), broadwaysf.com

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, the vibrant Tony Award–winning play by Ghanaian-American playwright Jocelyn Bioh, takes place at a beauty salon in Harlem. As love ignites and secrets unravel over one scorching hot summer, West African immigrant braiders and their local customers grapple with the challenges of outsiders stepping into a close-knit community.

Can't-Miss Music + Festivals

The Handmaid’s Tale

Based on the dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood, SF Opera’s The Handmaid’s Tale gives voice to an authoritarian world in which women are forced to bear the children of the upper class. The story of Offred and her attempts to resist the regime and return to her child is evocatively scored by Poul Ruders in this West Coast debut.

// September 14 to October 1; SF Opera, 301 Van Ness Ave. (Civic Center), sfopera.com

Verdi’s Requiem

For the first time since 2011, the SF Symphony takes up Verdi’s Requiem, an operatic translation of the medieval Latin mass for the dead. Music director Esa-Pekka Salonen guides the musicians as they bring divine scripture to the streets on a three-night event that opens with choral works by celebrated SF composer, Gordon Getty.

// September 19-21 at 7:30pm at Davies Symphony Hall; 201 Van Ness Ave. (Civic Center), sfsymphony.org

Festival Napa Valley

Festival Napa Valley's Fall season will bring exquisite musical performances to iconic wine country settings. Up first is Eileen Moon & Friends performing Franz Schubert's Cello Quintet in September, followed by two November performances combining classical and contemporary music. The season's finale, Donizetti's classic operatic comedy Don Pasquale, debuts at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis on November 15.

// September 29 through November 15, festivalnapavalley.org

Mill Valley Film Festival

In its 47th year, the Mill Valley Film Festival will celebrate the latest works from Bay Area filmmakers, along with films highlighting the region's natural beauty and the personal stories of its communities. Among this year's features are Berkeley director Connie Field's Democracy Noir, about Hungarian women fighting against the corrupt regime of Viktor Orban; Berkeley director Jalena Keane-Lee's Standing Above the Clouds, about the protectors of Hawaii's sacred mountain, Mauna Kea; and Lost in Time: Druid Heights, about a counterculture ghost town above Mill Valley threatened by the National Parks Service.

// October 3-13, mvff.com

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

Brandy Clark, Cat Power, Devendra Banhart, Emmylou Harris, Mavis Staples, and Sleater-Kinney are just a few of the names already confirmed to headline the return of one of SF’s best free music festivals. In addition to a weekend of music at Golden Gate Park, keep an eye out for Hardly Strictly artists showing up outside their natural habitat at a handful of venues around the Bay Area.

// October 4-6; Golden Gate Park, hardlystrictlybluegrass.com

Litquake

SF’s massive literary festival returns for its 25th year with a diverse program of live events celebrating and engaging in a variety of literary pursuits. This year’s lineup features such boldface pen names as Daniel Handler, Alexis Madrigal, Michelle Tea, Andrew Sean Greer, Rachel Kushner, Dave Eggers and many more. Expect writing workshops, readings from upcoming books, conversations with writers, and, of course, the culminating Lit Crawl in the Mission.

// October 10-26; litquake.org

Breakaway Festival

This genre-blending music festival returns to the Bay Area for Halloween weekend. Groove to DJs, musicians, and a silent disco with headliners like Marshmello, RL Grime, Alok, and Anabel Englund over this two-day send up to sound.

// October 25 to 26; Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove St. (Civic Center), billgrahamcivic.com

Thelonious Monk Festival

Four performances in October will celebrate jazz legend Thelonious Monk in honor of his 107th birthday. The festival kicks off with three shows dedicated to Monk’s music, the big band sounds of John Beasley Monk’estra at Miner Auditorium, and back-to-back performances by virtuoso pianist Sullivan Fortner. Fortner returns, followed by artists Diego Gaeta and Marta Sanchez, Friday through Sunday at SFJazz’s Joe Henderson Lab.

Dance, From Alice Coltrane to Step Afrika

West End Arts District Presents Bandaloop’s Somewhere to Land

As part of the ongoing, year-long artistic series Rising Tides, designed to inspire action around climate change, Bandaloop's Somewhere to Land (dances for sea and low sky) is a site-specific work at Alameda Point using the metal girders of Hangar 25 as a vertical stage to explore themes of climate adaptation, rewilding, and sustainable development, set to an original live musical score by Bay Area luminaries.

// 7pm pre-show, 7:30 performance Thursday through Saturday, September 26-28 at Hangar 25 (Alameda); more info at westendartsdistrict.org

Two Folds: A Siddhi Creative Double Feature

Two Folds delivers the world premier of two productions that celebrate the richness of shared human experience. In the multidisciplinary work The Maze, the stories of women navigating patriarchal structures ignites a dialogue about bodily autonomy and agency, while Finding Joy celebrates the beauty of the modern world through Bharatanatyam practice and presentation.

// September 20-22 at the B. Way Theater; 3153 17th St. (Mission), odc.dance

Alonzo King Lines Ballet

The Alonzo King Lines Ballet’s mesmerizing Fall 2024 season is inspired by legendary spiritual leader, harpist, and composer Alice Coltrane. The performances, part of a nationwide tribute to the musician’s legacy, will interpret Coltrane’s body of work through King’s imaginative choreography, a talent he first flexed to one of her songs as a child. The show also features King’s recent collaboration with the SF Symphony, a color-rich interpretation of composer Maurice Ravel’s 1912 fairytale suite, Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose).

// September 26-29 at the Blue Shield of California Theater; YBCA, 700 Howard St. (SoMa), linesballet.org

Step Afrika!

Celebrated Washington D.C. step dance company Step Afrika! presents The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence at Zellerbach Hall this November. With an uplifting soundtrack and inspiration from Lawrence’s 1940s paintings, this production tells the story of the Great Migration through tap, body percussion, and modern dance.

// Nov 2-3 at Zellerbach Hall; 101 Zellerbach Hall (Berkeley), calperformances.org

Gush 2024: A Festival

The Joe Goode Performance Group’s (JGPG) third bi-annual Gush Festival is a showcase for the perspectives of the troupe’s collaborators beginning with Are You Okay, a short duet from Melecio Estrella. Other selections include an excerpt from JCPG’s celebrated 2023 work As We Go; Edging, a meditation on loneliness and connection; and Ground Pressure, which asks how to rewild the sense of self and find a new path forward.