A&E

Editor’s Note: With this issue we introduce ‘Staycation,’ a twice-monthly feature exploring the wealth of day trips, overnights and weekend getaways in and around the greater Bay Area. The easiest way to maximize vacation time is to spend it locally, and Sonoma County is full...

Raven PlayersBetty and Edith and Sue are lifelong friends who share the same godmother. On stage at the Raven Performing Arts Center, 115 North St. Performances until Nov. 19, various times. See review this issue. Thursday through Saturday, 7:30pm. Sunday 2pm. Basketball OpenerHealdsburg High basketball...

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle opens in 1996, with the  discovery of the old board game on a sandy beach. When the box is opened, a video game cartridge is inside which just happens to fit the Sony Play Station the teen-aged son has in his bedroom. We then flash forward 20 years, where (echoing the plot points of the The Breakfast Club), four teens end up in detention for various reasons: Spencer, the Wimp (Alex Wolf) is called into the principal’s office for writing a history paper for  Fridge, the Jock (Ser’Darius Blain); Bethany, the Babe (Madison Iseman) is busted for using her cell phone during a test;  and Martha, the Brain (Morgan Turner), talks back to her PE teacher. The foursome discover the Jumanji video game in the school basement, and are magically transformed into the game avatars they select. The wimp becomes  Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), a muscular, self-effacing “expert” with a “smoldering look.”  The brain develops sex appeal, long, shapely legs, and deadly martial arts skills as Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) who is clad in a ridiculous,  midriff-baring jungle outfit.  The Jock becomes the wise-cracking, short-statured zoologist named Franklin “Mouse” Finbar (Kevin Hart), and when the babe selected “the curvy genius cartographer” named Dr. Shelly Oberon, she did not envision Jack Black’s body. It takes awhile for the teens to learn to utilize their avatar’s skill sets, but fortunately, the game gives them two extra lives.

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the 123-year-old redwood church on the corner of Matheson and East streets, is hosting an informal music festival to recognize one of the most colorful characters in classical music, Max Reger, on the 150th anniversary of his birth in 1873. While...

It¹s been called the sport of kings, but the exhilaration and

Great Redwood Trail Public meeting of the Great Redwood Trail Agency board of directors, to be held Thursday, April 20, at 10:30am at Healdsburg City Council Chambers, 401 Grove St. Not Kansas? Join Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road to Oz, with her friends Scarecrow, Tin Man,...

Artists reception on Friday Oct. 25, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Sebastopol Ballet owners talk about “The Nutcracker”

For those who like to keep a well-stocked home bar, it may seem like a no-brainer to include a few special, locally made craft spirits in the mix.  After all, Sonoma County is home to more than a dozen craft distilleries. But I would challenge...