Looking for a few fun things to add to your summer calendar? Here are five events/activities happening in the Bay Area that should be well worth your time.
South Bay Shores
There are plenty of reasons to be excited about the reopening of California’s Great America, which was closed for all of 2020 due to COVID-19 precautions. Yet, No. 1 on the list is the debut of the park’s greatly updated and expanded waterpark area — now known as South Bay Shores – which features seven new water attractions. That number includes the massive Pacific Surge, a six-story-tall tower that features four trap-door freefall slides and two innertube slides.
Details: California’s Great America season runs May 22-Aug. 29; South Bay Shores is expected to open in early summer; 4701 Great America Pkwy, Santa Clara; single-day tickets start at $35, season passes start at $66.99; cagreatamerica.com.
Season of Shared Light
California Shakespeare Theater only plans to host one production of its own — Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” directed by artistic director Eric Ting — during what’s dubbed the 2021 “Season of Shared Light.” Otherwise, the acclaimed East Bay theater company plans to share its beautiful Bruns Amphitheater with other community and arts groups — such as Berkeley’s West Edge Opera — looking for precious outdoor space to mount shows this summer.
Details: Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; visit calshakes.org for details on “Season of Shared Light” schedule.
Oakland Theater Project
Still feeling a little apprehensive about sitting or standing next to someone at a show? Well, a great socially distanced solution is to attend one of the Oakland Theater Project’s drive-in theater productions, where you watch the show from the comfort of your own car. (Think drive-in movies, only you’ll be watching a play instead of a film.) The company is hosting two world premieres this summer — filmmaker/playwright Kathleen Collins’ “Begin the Beguine: A Quartet of One Acts” and “The Dream Life of Malcolm X,” which was co-created by Oakland Theater Project’s own John Wilkins, William Hodgson and Dawn L. Troupe
Details: 7:30 p.m. Thurs-Sun, May 28-July 3 (“Begin the Beguine”), July 23-Aug. 29 (“Malcolm X”); parking lot for the Oakland Theater at FLAX art & design, 1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland; $25-$50 per vehicle; oaklandtheaterproject.org.
“Immersive Van Gogh”
The popular touring exhibition, which opened at San Francisco’s SVN back in March, invites patrons to explore the life and art of Vince van Gogh from a whole new perspective. Far from being a typical exhibition, “Immersive Van Gogh” is a multimedia, multi-sensory show that uses light, music, movement, imagination and other elements to allow people to “step inside” such iconic van Gogh paintings as “Nuit étoilée” (Starry Night, 1889) from the safety and comfort of their own clearly marked social bubbles.
Details: Through Sept. 6; SVN West, Market Street and South Van Ness, San Francisco; timed entry tickets start at $39.99-$49.99 ($24.99 for children 16 or younger); vangoghsf.com.
Children’s Music Theatre San Jose
CMT has been putting on family-friendly theater productions in San Jose for over a half century. This summer, however, they’ll be doing so at their brand new CMT Creative Arts Center. The organization is mounting three productions — “Snoopy the Musical,” “Starlight Express” and “American Idiot” — which will run concurrently, summer repertoire style, July 8-25 at an outdoor space created in the side parking lot of the building. CMT is expected to return to its longtime performance venue of the Montgomery Theater later in the year.
Details: July 8-25; Creative Arts Center, 1545 Parkmoor Avenue, San Jose; cmtsj.org.
