New Creative Sonoma online calendar offers ways to find virtual performances

In the new reality of the coronavirus and sheltering in place, most of us just don’t get out much anymore. But that hasn’t kept the Sonoma County arts community from reaching its audience through social media.

In fact, there’s so much local theater, art and music online now you need a scorecard to track it all.

To help residents find the diversion they want, the arts support nonprofit Creative Sonoma - a division of the Sonoma County Economic Development Board - has introduced a countywide arts calendar site at creativesonoma.org/event with links to nearly 50 local arts organizations listing their online events and programs. Activities range from movie nights to live interviews to curated performances from the archives of various local venues. Just open up the calendar site and click on the icons for the programs that interest you.

“People all over the world have turned to the arts to occupy their minds and soothe their spirits during this unsettling time,” said Kristen Madsen, director of Creative Sonoma.

“Watching the ingenious pivot that our Sonoma County arts community has made to move their content online and stay connected to their audiences prompted us to launch this website for one-stop shopping on the virtual creative activities across the county.

“We wanted to create a website where everyone in the county can explore the depth and breadth of creativity activity that is occurring every day, and to support the individuals and organizations who make Sonoma County such an inviting place to live and visit,” she added. “Hopefully it will help audiences keep connected with the artists they already know and love but maybe also introduce them to new art forms and activities that are occurring in our virtual backyard.”

Film

The Alexander Valley Film Society, known for its annual fall festival and smaller screening events throughout the year, responded to the statewide stay-home orders with its “Shelter in Place” series, featuring online screenings of ticketed film releases on Mondays, virtual food-and-wine movie nights on Wednesdays and live interviews via the Zoom conferencing service with notable guests from the movie industry on Sundays, which the society’s executive director, Kathryn Hecht, moderates from her home office.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, she’ll talk to Bret Parker of San Francisco, an animator and voice actress for Pixar, and Sarah Reimers, a Southern California indie film director and animator, who has worked for Pixar and Disney. In addition to the Creative Sonoma calendar, general information is available at avfilmsociety.org.

“For Mother’s Day, we wanted to feature filmmakers who are also moms,” Hecht said.

Local musicians

At Santa Rosa’s Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, several new online programs have been introduced, including “Luther Locals,” which puts a spotlight on local acts who normally might never make it to the center’s mainstage, which most often features national names. It starts at 5 p.m. on Fridays. For more information, go to lutherburbankcenter.org and click on “virtual programs.”

“We had been having conversations for the past couple of years on how to engage local musicians more, so it’s not a new idea,” said Anita Wiglesworth, the center’s director of programs and patron services.

With the center dark during the virus shutdown, staff have been able to line up online performances by popular local musicians including eight-string guitarist Nate Lopez, jazz artist Eki Shola, singer-songwriter David Luning and performers from the Sonoma-?based Transcendence Theatre Company, all to be featured in June. The Kingsborough band, which once opened for ZZ Top at Luther Burbank Center, is scheduled for an online “Luther Locals” performance in July.

“It’s a fun way to introduce people to local artists,” Wiglesworth said. “This could continue even after we open up again. Then once or twice a year we could do a live, in-person show by the best of the ‘Luther Locals’ acts.”

There’s another benefit for performers. The names of acts featured on “Luther Locals” will be posted on the center’s hard-to-miss electronic signboard on northbound Highway 101.

“For some of these acts, all they ever wanted was to get their names on our marquee,” Wiglesworth said.

The center also presents “Drop the Mic,” featuring members of its own programming staff as hosts of a session of selected Spotify jams and YouTube clips, some by acts whose shows at the center were prevented by sheltering in place, at 5 p.m. every Wednesday.

Green Music Center in Rohnert Park has its own program similar to Burbank Center’s “Drop the Mic,” with its executive director Jacob Yarrow choosing clips by favorite acts, including some that had been scheduled to perform at the center but whose shows were canceled or postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Already, he has hosted shows on two of those acts: jazz artist Maria Schneider and the touring “Charlie Parker @ 100” salute. Yarrow, a musician, even sat in on his episode on Parker.

“I played my saxophone by myself in my bedroom as my personal contribution to that episode,” Yarrow said, adding that he hopes to schedule more virtual presentations. Check for updates at gmc.sonoma.edu.

Theater

The Left Edge Theatre, one of Burbank Center’s resident companies, has converted its fifth annual season preview event to an online presentation, scheduled for 7 p.m. May 16 and 2 p.m. May 17. Since this is the company’s yearly fundraiser, you’ll need to purchase $30 tickets online at let.simpletix.com/e/51244 or, for general information, go to leftedgetheatre.com.

The company emailed backdrops to participating actors to use when they perform scenes from selected shows via Zoom.

“All of the actors are working remotely, so this way they can have common background scenery,” said Argo Thompson, the company’s artistic director.

The players will present excerpts from nine plays and viewers can vote on which three they prefer, which will then be incorporated in the Left Edge six-show season for 2020-2021.

“In a twist on our usual season preview, the people watching us get to vote on the shows they’d like to see next season.” Thompson said. “The great thing about Zoom is you’re allowed to do polls. This is a good taste of what Zoom is capable of doing. We’ve upgraded our Zoom capacity and trained our staff and volunteers.”

For kids

At the Children’s Museum of Sonoma County in Santa Rosa, oriented to children 10 and younger, one of the most popular events has been “Wacky Wednesday,” held weekly since the museum opened in 2014, museum CEO and founder Collette Michaud said. The event is continuing online from 2:30 to ?3:30 p.m. every Wednesday.

“It’s an opportunity to present anything from art activities to science,” Michaud said. “We’ve had lots of visitors signing on.”

Other museum programs offered online include story time daily at 11 a.m. and toddler play dates, led by staff members by remote. For information, go to cmosc.org.

“It has been challenging,” Michaud said. “Our program team had to put together virtual resources on the web. On a dime, they converted almost all of what we do at the museum to online activities. Going forward, we’ll continue to do a lot of what we’ve doing online.”

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com.