While summer blockbuster films roll out their latest GCI villains, or heroes, in a landscape of harmless destruction and to an audience equally hungry for stimulation and popcorn, here in Healdsburg we can thank the Raven Performing Arts Theater in large measure for the live human arts’ continued presence in Healdsburg, as well as for providing us with a venue.
This is to take nothing away from The 222, which brings thoughtful and quality programming for limited engagements to its Healdsburg Avenue quonset gallery. Both venues have benefited from Healdsburg Tourism District Fund grants, or awards, and together both help elevate the performance arts in the area.
The Raven Players’ offerings begin as soon as Friday, July 31, with the performance of one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, Two Gentlemen of Verona, at the newest Raven venue, Bacchus Landing. While it’s technically not part of the Raven Players’ season, it fits the playbill nonetheless.
Previous summer Shakespeare productions have taken place at West Plaza Park, not the ideal venue for theater. The last show there was Comedy of Errors in 2023, but nothing was staged last year.
This year’s presentation follows best friends Proteus and Valentine, who travel to Milan where they both fall in love with the same woman. Bawdy wordplay ensues. Director Steven David Martin has set his production in 1950s Italy with period music, fashion and plenty of “red-hot Italian passion.”
Martin, the Players’ artistic director, is particularly enthusiastic about the location of the production. “The Two Gentlemen of Verona performed outdoors at a beloved Sonoma County wine destination—I can’t think of a better setting for Shakespeare than the Bacchus Landing piazza on a warm summer evening,” he said. Jenna Dolcini is listed as co-director.
The play runs from July 31 to Aug. 16 on irregular weekend days, with performances starting at 7:30pm. Bacchus Landing offers wood-fired pizza, served fresh from the Mugnaini oven for purchase, and select tasting rooms will be open for each performance so patrons can purchase wine. Tickets from $5 per student to $25 in the front row, with tables. Venue located at 14210 Bacchus Landing Way, off Westside Road.
The Raven Players’ season officially begins with Eureka Day, a much newer and still controversial play by Johnathan Spector. It concerns a private California elementary school whose board of directors values inclusion above all else—until an outbreak of the mumps forces the community to reconsider the school’s vaccine policy. The New York Times called it both the “saddest” and the “funniest play to open this year.”
Again directed by Martin, the play opens on Sept. 5 for a three-weekend run at the Raven Performing Arts Theater. Tickets will be $25 for adults, $10 for students.
Return to Shakespeare
By the time autumn is well underway, the Raven Players will return to Shakespeare with one of the playwright’s most psychological plays, Macbeth. Three witches consult their cauldron and foresee a successful if bloody future for the wandering captain. Steven David Martin again directs, and the staging at the Raven Theater is sure to be a key component of the play’s success.
First performance is scheduled for Oct. 25 for a three-weekend run until Nov. 9. Tickets again $25 adults, $10 students.
Theater is not the only art performed at the Raven. This coming Saturday it will present “Stroll Down Penny Lane,” a live tribute to Paul McCartney’s various songwriting styles by a four-person combo headed by Joe Anastasi. That’s July 26, a return engagement for the 2023 program.
Two weeks later, on Saturday, Aug. 9, “Neil Diamond Superstar” returns. Jack Wright sings and drives the performance. The show is billed as “Hot August Night 2025,” a reference to the songwriter’s controversial 1972 live album.
Squeezed in between these two tribute shows, “Best of San Francisco Stand-Up Comedy” hopes to live up to its billing, a challenging task under the stark lights of the Raven Theater to judge from the uneven New Year’s Eve show. The Stand-Up Comedy show is billed as “One of the longest running independent shows in America… a comedy tour de force from some of the hottest up and coming acts in the Bay Area.” Maybe the next Dana Carvey will be in the lineup, or the next Ali Wong. Saturday, Aug. 2, 7:30pm. Tickets $29 or $39 first six rows.
Back to the Silver Screen
The 115 North St. location of the Raven has been a movie theater at least since the 1940s, originally called the Aven (after a presumed family name) and changed in the high-flying 1990s to the Raven. The hall returns to its original purpose Sept. 26-28, when the Healdsburg International Short Film Festival (HISFF) rolls out for its fourth year “another weekend of unforgettable cinema, parties, and a red carpet opening night.”
HISFF prides itself on a diversity of film styles reaching new audiences, and gets some mileage too out of its oft-illustrious panel of judges. This year it includes Saturday Night Live’s Laraine Newman, Hollywood veteran actor Ed Begley Jr., and returning jurors Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan among others.
Tickets are on sale now for this three-day, short-film extravaganza, organized in collaboration with the Healdsburg Center for the Arts (HCA). HISFF 2025 coincides with HCA’s Festival of the Arts in the Healdsburg Plaza, to add to a vibrant, art-filled weekend. Details at healdsburgfilm.com.
