Margo Hall

By Sandra
Varner/
Talk2SV.com

Currently running at The San Francisco Playhouse through March 16 is the aggressive and arresting Broadway hit, “The MF with The Hat” from playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis (Jesus Hopped the “A” Train).
“The Hat” is bold, edgy, powerful and callous with a cast up to the task of parlaying the pathos of two couples and a cousin, walking the tightrope of sobriety and seduction at the same time lobbing biting obscenities and curdling insults with rapid fire release.
Oakland’s Margo Hall plays Victoria, the seething wife of Ralph (Carl Lumbly), angered by his infidelity and her inability to spurn his knowingly dangerous charm and his slick and sexy ways.
Hall described Victoria as a woman, “who at one point in her life was on top of the world. She was a junior trader on Wall Street making $100K a year, she dated an art dealer, but she had a substance abuse problem. She was attending Alcoholics Anonymous trying to work it all out when she heard Ralph at a meeting and was taken in by his charisma and all the things that he’s very good at as a manipulator. She left her life behind and went to Ralph, now feeling stuck in this relationship because there’s a fear that if she leaves him she may go back to using; he holds that power over her.”
Hall said she knows women who felt trapped in abusive relationships, and, because of their feelings of no self worth, they didn’t feel they had a way out.
Read more at www.Talk2SV.com.

Dayna Stephens

By Lee
Hildebrand

Former East Bay resident Dayna Stephens is, at age 34, one of the most gifted jazz tenor saxophonists of his generation.
Now living in Patterson, New Jersey, he says he “caught the bug” two decades ago from seeing a local performance by tenor titan Joshua Redman. Because Redman and other jazz greats were alumni of Berkeley High School’s celebrated jazz program, Stephens decided to transfer there from Alameda High for his senior year.
“I wanted to be in an environment my last year where there were kids as dedicated to the music as I was,” he explains. He went on to graduate from the Berklee College of Music in Boston and study at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at the University of Southern California with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and others.
Stephens, who has performed in New York City with such jazz heavyweights as Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell and John Scofield, returns to Northern California at least twice a year. He’s taught at the Stanford Jazz Workshop every summer for the past nine years, as well as at the University of the Pacific’s Brubeck Institute in Stockton for three.
“His sound is beautiful,” says Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet tenor saxophonist Tom Kelley, who studied with Stephens two years ago. “He’s an amazing player because he knows exactly what to play and what not to play at any given moment. He never traps his own playing within himself. He always plays what’s best for the music and for the group.”
Stephens was diagnosed two and a half years ago with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis, a rare kidney disease that affects 20 out of every million people. He currently undergoes dialysis four and a half hours a day three times a week.
“If I’m not watching a TV, I’m on my computer doing e-mails and trying to get some business work done,” he says of his time spent hooked up to a dialysis machine..
The saxophonist is in need of a kidney transplant. “Luckily,” he says, “the waiting list in New Jersey is one of the shortest. It’ll be about three to seven years.”
Stephens will take part in a benefit to help cover his medical expenses on Sunday, Feb. 17, beginning at 6:30 p.m., at the Piedmont Piano Company, 1728 San Pablo Ave. in Oakland.
He will be playing with a world-class trio comprising pianist Taylor Eigsti, bassist Harish Raghavan, and drummer Eric Harland. Known for his work with Charles Lloyd, the SFJazz Collective and others, Harland is considered by many to be one of the most creative drummers performing today.
Also on the bill is the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet, which helped organize the benefit. More information can be found at www.helpdaynastephens.org.
The saxophonist will be back in the area less than two weeks later to perform with bassist Jeff Denson and pianist Joshua White at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, March 1, at the Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. in Berkeley.

Nokuthula Ngwenyama, on stage at Regents Theater at Holy Names University in Oakland. Photos by Fluhrer/Chin.

East Oakland Leadership Academy students greeted the artists after the performance. From left to right: Miracle Sheperd, Sandra Rivers (pianist), Nokuthula Ngwenyama (violist, violinist), Kris Rivas, Rovijon Davis, and Lizeth Castillo-Simon.

Nokuthula Ngwenyama shares her story with students at East Oakland Leadership Academy.

About 50 middle school students from the East Oakland Leadership Academy had the opportunity last week to hear a performance by classical violinist and violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama, who the L.A. Times called, “A Face to Watch,” hosted by Four Seasons Arts.
Ngwenyama played pieces for the students, discussed the viola and violin and answered questions about her struggle to become an international star.
Born in Los Angeles of Zimbabwean-Japanese parents, Ngwenyama told the students, “I started playing the violin at age 5.  My father was initially opposed to my playing “the white man’s music’. Much later he became supportive.”
A graduate of Curtis Institute and a Fulbright scholar, Ngwenyama earned a Masters in Theology from Harvard University.  She has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad, appeared at the White House, on CBS Sunday Morning, and was featured on the Emmy Award-nominated PBS program Sound of Strings.
She is an advocate for the arts who testified before Congress on behalf of the National Endowment for the Arts.  She served as visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame in 2007 where she lectured on African Music and Music and World Religions.
Four Seasons Arts is bringing Music Share to East Oakland Leadership Academy, a program designed to expose students to classical music, which is strongly supported by the school’s principal Dr. Laura Armstrong.
Besides attending classical concerts and in-school seminars by major performing artists, the young people are participating in classes that make classical music accessible on iPods and other technological devices.
Ngwenyama performed with world renowned pianist Sandra Rivers on the piano, on Jan. 12 at Regents Theatre at Holy Names University in Oakland. Several of the children from the Leadership Academy were the first to greet the artists after the performance.

Oakland Youth Orchestra

The award-winning Oakland Youth Orchestra is opening its season with a winter concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 27 at Holy Names University in Oakland.
The free winter concert follows on the heels of the orchestra’s participation in the Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival, known as the “Bay of Hope,” at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 20 at Sonoma State University.
Started in 2009, the festival brings together six of the Bay Area’s most prominent youth orchestras for an afternoon of music, with proceeds benefitting charitable organizations serving homeless youth.
The Jan. 20 festival will take place at Green Music Center, Weill Hall, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park. The Jan. 27 event will take place at Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd. in Oakland.
For more information visit www.oyo.org.