San Rafael
Comedy Champ
The San Francisco Comedy Competition’s BEST returns to the Marin Center featuring the comedy stylings of headliner and winner Chris Riggins. Recently relocated to Hollywood to capitalize on his win, Riggins so impressed comedy juggernaut Dave Chapelle that he was hired to perform as Chapelle’s opening act. “While a unique take on growing up in the Bay Area and finding humor in the struggle are the centerpiece of Chris’ act, he is relatable to people from all walks of life,” explain the show notes from the comedian’s appearance at last year’s SF Sketchfest. “While many comics can make you laugh, few can make you reflect humorously on life experiences the way that Chris does.” The Bay Area’s Stuart B. Thompson and Josef Anolin round out the bill. The laughs begin at 8pm, Saturday, Feb. 17 at the center’s Showcase Theatre, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. Tickets are $40 to $45—this show is 16 and older—and available online at bit.ly/chris-riggins.
Speed of Light
LIGHTFAST: Intertwine is an immersive, site-specific sculptural environment responding to the landscape of di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art that incorporates radical, genre-bending visual, sculptural, audio and textual elements from Feb. 24 through June 2. The four artists of LIGHTFAST are novelist and story writer Sylvia Brownrigg, cellist Monica Scott, and visual artists Christel Dillbohner and Danae Mattes. Beginning in 2020, the quartet began conversing and collecting images—musical, verbal and visual. “This exciting project continues di Rosa’s soft residency program,” says associate curator Twyla Ruby. “LIGHTFAST spent months exploring our 217-acre property, collecting images and materials, channeling its changing patterns, conditions and moods over time. The result is an immersive sculptural environment speaking to this unique site and the interchange between art and nature.” The public is invited to an opening reception from 5:30 to 7pm, Saturday, Feb. 24. For tickets, free for members and $10 for non-members, visit dirosaart.org.
San Rafael
Selfless Servants
The public is invited to the First Annual Interfaith Celebration of 5 Selfless Servants. Backstory: Four chaplains were aboard the troop ship, the Dorchester, off Greenland in February of 1943 when they were torpedoed by a German submarine. The chaplains gave up their life jackets so that others might live. Likewise, the fifth hero was a petty officer, first class, on board the Coast Guard cutter, the Comanche. As a Black man relegated to menial tasks, there was no expectation that he would volunteer for the rescue effort. He not only did so, but he worked himself to exhaustion and died as a result. This event is sponsored by The 31st CA Regiment of the United States Volunteers-America, the Marin County United Veterans’ Council and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marin. It begins at 2pm, Sunday, Feb. 18, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marin on 240 Channing Way, San Rafael.
Sonoma County
Helluva Book
The Sonoma County Library presents a virtual author talk with New York Times bestselling author Jason Mott, discussing his recent novel, Hell of a Book—described as a deeply honest, at times electrically funny, work to the heart of racism, police violence and the hidden costs exacted upon Black Americans and America as a whole. Told with a plot and characters who are said to burn into the mind, Hell of a Book is the novel Mott has been writing in his head for the last 10 years. And in its final twists, it truly becomes its title. Mott is the author of two poetry collections and four novels. His first novel, The Returned, was adapted for television and aired on ABC under the title Resurrection. Since then, his novels that followed have received various accolades and acclaim. Hell of a Book won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction Winner, was a Carnegie Medals For Excellence Longlist nominee and the winner of the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction. The free event takes place online from 1 to 2pm on Tuesday, Feb. 20. Registration is required at bit.ly/jason-mott.
