Thursday, May 2
Hidden Kingdom
Over a period of 20 years that included four expeditions to the Tibetan Plateau, photographer Kenneth Parker captured the region of Mustang, often referred to as the “hidden kingdom” because its culture has been undisturbed by time and outsiders. The Carmel-based large-format landscape photographer joined fellow photographer Luigi Fieni to release Tibetan
Mustang: A Cultural Renaissance in 2023, a culmination of all those years immersed in the culture. The book documents the Buddhist temples that characterize Mustang’s medieval capital, and how careful restoration work has countered the effects of centuries of deterioration. Parker, who has an exhibit of his work on display at the Weston Gallery in Carmel, has recently transitioned from using analog 4x5 cameras to digital. He will join the Weekly’s Celia Jiménez for a conversation and audience Q&A for the next installment of Mic’d Up at The Press Club. [EC]
12:30pm Thursday, May 2. The Press Club at The Creperie Cafe, 1123 Fremont Blvd., Seaside. Free. 901-3900.
Thursday, May 2-Sunday, May 5
“Why Isn’t it ‘Froaderick Fronkensteen’?”
Frederick Frankenstein – “Fronkensteen,” he insists is the pronunciation – leaves the U.S. to return to the Transylvania laboratory of his grandfather Victor to prove to everyone that his grandfather wasn’t as crazy as they thought he was for reanimating a dead body. With Victor’s assistant Igor (pronounced “eye-gor”), they dig up the body of a criminal, as one does, then Frederick relies on Igor to get the brain for transplanting into the 7-foot-tall body. Whose brain was it? Abby Normal? Oh, no. Mel Brooks’ classic 1974 comedy Young Frankenstein comes to life through the musical stage production via the West End, thanks to the Monterey High School Players in collaboration with Monterey Peninsula College Theatre. Songs include “The Transylvania Mania,” “He Vas My Boyfriend” and “Puttin on the Ritz.” Expect big laughs as Frederick’s hapless story unfolds. [PM]
7:30pm Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 4:30pm Sunday, May 2-5. Outdoor Forest Theater, Santa Rita Street and Mountain View Avenue, Carmel. $27/general admission, $12/students. 622-0100, mhsplayers.com.
Friday, May 3 – Sunday, May 4
Keep It Short
One of the thrills of live theater is that it brings the audience into a new world. One-act plays deliver that same thrill in shorter doses, and the bonus of a lineup of five one-acts is five different worlds that reveal five different stories – and very different vibes. The Mavisville March is a historic dramedy about a women’s liberation march in 1960s small-town Pennsylvania. Divided Requiem deals with grief, as a couple processes the death of their son by suicide, straining their relationship. There’s also a play about the Holocaust and its aftermath, and meditation on what it means to marry an influencer – who is busy working on a brand-boosting divorce announcement. You can expect to laugh, to contemplate, and to cry. The thing to rejoice about is that these five contemporary one-act plays, produced by Soapbox Stageworks, inaugurate a brand-new stage inside Lighthouse Cinema. This marks the grand opening of a new dimension of this beloved venue from screen to live theater, with endless possibilities ahead. [SR]
7-9pm Friday-Saturday, May 3-4. Lighthouse Cinema & Event Center, 525 Lighthouse Ave., Pacific Grove. $35. soapboxstageworks@gmail.com, soapboxstageworks.org.
Friday, May 3 – Sunday, May 5
Speed Racers
To understand auto racing, first you have to decipher the language of applied sponsorship. For instance, from May 3-5 WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca hosts the Mission Foods Laguna Seca Speedtour. No, these are not delivery vehicles huffing and puffing around the track, but snarling, broad-shouldered American muscle – Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers and Corvettes of the Trans Am Western Championship, dueling on both Saturday and Sunday for dominance on the storied track, with practice and qualifying on Friday. But the track will not be silent. In between Trans Am events, vintage race cars of the SVRA fire up for hot laps. So you can watch the budding stars of today and the cars that fueled excitement in the past. So if you have a need for speed, this is a two for one deal. Trans Am qualifying takes place at 3:50pm Friday, with races at 12:30pm Saturday and 11:20am Sunday. [DF]
8am Friday-Sunday, May 3-5. WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, 1021 Highway 68, Salinas. $10-$65; free/children 15 and under with a paying adult. 242-8200, weathertechraceway.com.
Saturday, May 4-Saturday, May 11
Cheerful Reflection
Pacific Grove’s Good Old Days Festival is entering its 65th year – retirement age for a person – which raises the question: When, exactly, were the “good old days?” Humans have a tendency of looking in the rearview through a rose-tinted lens, but no matter – the two-day festival, which spills out along Lighthouse Avenue with five different stages, features a slate of artists and goes from late morning to the evening. It kicks off with a 10am parade on Pine Avenue at Alder Street on Saturday, and the joy starts from there. [DS]
10am to evening Saturday, May 4; 11:30am to evening Sunday, May 5. Downtown Pacific Grove, Lighthouse Avenue between 14th Avenue and Congress Avenue. Free. bit.ly/GoodOldDays2024.
Daughter Problems
Sol Treasures brings a little bit of Broadway to King City. See their take on the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof that will be performed in the Robert Stanton Theater in King City. The show includes the original music by musical theater composer Jerry Bock and lyrics by songwriter Sheldon Harnick and is based on a book by playwright Joseph Stein that itself was based on Tevye and his Daughters (1890) by a Russian Jew Sholem Aleichem, a key figure in Yiddish literature, the first language of the text. The Broadway musical was the first commercially successful English-language stage production about Jewish life in Eastern Europe. [AP]
7pm Saturday, May 4, 2pm Sunday, May 5, 7pm Friday-Saturday May 10-May 11. Robert Stanton Auditorium, 720 Broadway St., King City. $25; $10/students, children. 386-1381. soltreasures.com.
Two-Wheel Tango
What is your impression of motorcycle riders? Leather jackets, sure. Burly men, rulebreakers – your mind might go there. But The Quail Motorcycle Gathering will blow those thoughts away. The event is an elegant family celebration of all things two-wheeled (or three, if you add a sidecar). There will be some 350 motorcycles on display, from antiques to modern, from sculpted futuristic rides to choppers and one-off customs the likes of which you’ve never seen. Famed racers will be on hand, as well as manufacturers. But there’s more, with scooters – Vespa is a featured class – and even bicycles. If it has two wheels and can fire the imagination, it’s here. The event also serves an elegant lunch (The Quail, after all). [DF]
10am-4pm Saturday, May 4. The Quail, 8000 Valley Greens Drive, Carmel. $70-$185; $25 ages 13-17; Free 12 and under. 620-8879, peninsula.com.
Sunday, May 5
Garden Party
If you haven’t been, go. If you’ve been before – maybe it’s time to experience it again during the annual garden party? Spending a few hours in the stone house of poet Robinson Jeffers with its majestic Hawk Tower is always a good choice. “This year we will feature a full music program with an accent on youth: an ensemble from Youth Music Monterey and a youth mariachi band from Watsonville,” says Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation President Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts. “Ed Jarvis will be playing the bagpipes from the top of Hawk Tower, and local pianist Pauline Troia will be playing Una Jeffers’ 1904 Steinway Model O grand piano in the cottage.” [AP]
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