Page 9 | Bohemian | Sonoma & Napa Counties

‘Dispatches’: Artist Transforms Wildfire Experiences into Haunting Sound Art

Apr 28, 2026

‘Dispatches’: Artist Transforms Wildfire Experiences into Haunting Sound Art

Some events burn through a place. Others continue burning quietly inside the people who lived through them. Multimedia artist Merlin Coleman has made a work that listens to both. Her new work, DISPATCHES from the CHARCOAL FOREST, opens May 1 in the East Bay.

Part choral performance, part sound installation, part reckoning, the piece draws from interviews with cleanup workers, survivors, dispatch audio and others touched by the Tubbs Fire, which raged through Santa Rosa in 2017. Presented in the round, with singers moving through the audience, it surrounds listeners in voices, fragments, rhythms and raw emotion.

Coleman, who lives in Sonoma County and grew up here, said the project began simply enough—with a need to face what happened.

“I wanted to make a piece about fires,” she said in a recent interview on The Drive 95.5 FM. “That just felt like a really important subject to all of our hearts, obviously.”

From there, the work grew organically, as many of her projects do. She began listening, gathering stories, and one of the most affecting came by chance.

She met a man working on a road crew near her home. They struck up a conversation. He mentioned that after the 2017 fire, he had served on a cleanup crew.

That chance encounter became “Purple Heart,” one of the project’s centerpiece sections. In it, the worker recounts arriving at a leveled home in Fountain Grove, where the owner asked if he might look for a lost military medal in the ashes.

“There’s nothing, right? Zero,” Coleman said. “And he’s like, well maybe it’s over here. And the worker goes and finds it.”

It’s the sort of story that reveals how disasters are experienced not only through parsing the catastrophe they bring, but through tiny recoveries: an object, a gesture, the proof that something endured.

Coleman’s method is unusual and deeply musical. She takes spoken interviews and listens for their hidden tonalities—the cadence, syntax and melody already embedded in everyday speech. Then she builds compositions around them, layering her own voice or, in this production, a live vocal ensemble.

“The whole syntax and the musicality and the rhythm of his voice really—if you start listening and breaking down any human speech and looping it, you’ll start to hear melodies,” she said. “You only have to loop it three, four, five times.”

The upcoming staging takes what was once multitracked by Coleman herself to the stage with live singers who had to learn intricate cues and precisely timed elements built around spoken narration—a process that required “a lot of real precision,” Coleman noted.

Yet technical rigor is only half the challenge. The material itself is emotionally volatile. Another major section of the piece centers on a man who lost his parents in the Tubbs Fire. Coleman spoke candidly about the responsibility of shaping real grief into art.

“I take a great responsibility in illustrating these stories and in what I hope is an appropriate way,” she said. That meant making choices about restraint as much as intensity. She deliberately avoided using literal sirens in the work, for example.

“That seemed too literal,” she explained. “Too triggering.”

Instead, she created vocal sounds that evoke the “sirens” of Greek mythology. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one.

“My intention is for DISPATCHES to be a contribution to a collective healing,” she said. “I hope that this performance will create a space that can ultimately help people process these events.”

Merlin Coleman’s ‘DISPATCHES from the CHARCOAL FOREST’ will be performed at 8pm, May 1 & 2, at Dresher Ensemble Studio, 2201 Poplar St., Oakland (where Coleman shares the bill with Amy X Neuburg), and May 8 & 9 at Milkbar, 241A South 1st St., Richmond. For tickets and more information, visit merlinman.com.

Amigas, Female Artists of Color Bring ‘Enfrascada’ to Petaluma

Caitlin Strom-Martin

Apr 28, 2026

Amigas, Female Artists of Color Bring ‘Enfrascada’ to Petaluma

Mercury Theater’s latest effort, Enfrascada, by Tanya Saracho, is an absorbing journey into the pluricultural experience of a group of Latine friends who are attempting to help one of their own through a dirty breakup with the use of hoodoo, Brujería and Santería. This rallying cry to friendship and magic, led by director (and frequent Bohemian contributor) Beulah Vega and an all-female cast and crew, runs in Petaluma through May 10.

Steady Alicia (Reilly Milton, with some strong moments of truthfulness and an open-hearted nature) has been shunted for another woman by her boyfriend of nine years, leaving her bereft but strangely numb, unable to process this major transition.

Her lively besties, Yesenia (spicy Lexus Fletcher, who has some of the best lines and the fullest characterization of the three main characters), and sweet, sensible group leader Carolina (Bianca Trentadue, with a lovely stage presence and natural mother hen qualities), suggest the use of the gifts of their aunties, who are practitioners of ancient magic, in order to help Alicia win back her man.

Alicia quickly becomes consumed by these spells and tasks, while the audience gets a hefty dose of folk magic scenes that form the most engrossing parts of this story, aided by the remarkable work of Sky Hernandez-Simard as two of the magic practitioners. Her scenes were absolutely riveting and lent the show the momentum it needed to propel the women to their tender ending. A secondary character, eccentric cousin Lulu (played with subdued craftiness by Raysheina de Leon-Ruhs), acted as a hilarious chaos agent and helped scene transitions in a refreshing way.

The friend group, though believable and well written (they often speak Spanish, and while this reviewer is not fluent, she definitely understood all the nuances and inside jokes), didn’t resonate as fully at the opening night performance as they should once they’re into the heart of the run. Nerves seemed apparent, but all these actresses remained in the story without pushing for feeling, an admirable quality.

The many technical elements of the show were flawlessly executed by stage manager Kayla Hewson, and the use of lighting (Missy Weaver) and sound (Jess Johnson) added a lot of depth and mood to this very supernatural tale. Costumes by Serena Elize Flores showcased individual style and personality quite effectively.

If one is looking for a show outside of the white American theater-goer gaze, Enfrascada is there to fill that need.

Mercury Theater presents ‘Enfrascada’ through May 10 at 3333 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. Thur–Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. $20–$35. 707.658.9019. mercurytheater.org.

The Mix: Double Couple Date Stirs up Some Complicated Implications

Jeff Burkhart

Apr 28, 2026

The Mix: Double Couple Date Stirs up Some Complicated Implications

The foursome didn’t really come in hot. And they weren’t really coming in happy either. It was odd from the get-go. For me, and eventually for them too.

We see all kinds of groupings from behind the bar. Boys’ nights out, girls’ nights out, date nights; one really gets a bird’s eye view of the entire range of human romantic interactions. This one appeared to be two sets of friends out on the town. It was an easy assumption to make. And it was not the correct one.

They found four barstools and sat down just as one might expect. Boy, girl, boy, girl. Two espresso martinis, and two craft draft beers. It was so normal as to be almost mundane, until I set the drinks down.

Instead of the beers going to the gentlemen, and the drinks going to the ladies, it was a drink for one of the men, a drink for one of the women, and the same breakdown for the beers.

Typically, when one gets the double couple date night sitting at the bar, either the men are better friends or the women are. This grouping was unusual, because it appeared that the man and woman in the middle were the better friends, and they weren’t a couple.

Bartenders sometimes get a bad rap for being judgmental. And we are, about things that really matter. Things like one’s level of intoxication or their legal age. Things most bartenders could care less about are one’s relationship status and their opinion on shaking vs. stirring.

Just about then, a song came on the overhead speakers that elicited squeals from the couple in the middle.

“Let’s dance,” said the inner woman.

Which was a weird thing to say in a place that doesn’t have a dance floor.

Nonetheless, the inner couple got up and danced. It was all fun and games. And in the bar business, that’s usually pretty good. Until it isn’t.

“You guys seem like you’re really having fun,” said outside-man, when the dancers sat down.

“Well, you never dance,” said inside-woman. “And he does.”

A similar conversation was happening between outside-woman and inside-man.

It reminded me of the internecine workplace affair. The people involved always think they are being discreet. The funny thing is that everyone else always knows.

“Do you think they are having an affair?” outside-woman eventually asked outside-man, as their respective spouses bumped and ground.

“I’m not sure anymore,” he answered.

“Would you two like something else to drink?” I interjected, as bartenders so often do.

They both looked up at me.

“What do you think?” the outside-woman asked me.

“What do you mean?” I asked, knowing full well what she meant.

“Do you think those two are having an affair?” she said, pointing at the woman doing a backbend in the aisle while a husband frontbended over her.

“Do I think they are?” I queried back.

“Yes, do you think they are?” repeated the outer man, exasperated by the parsing.

“No, I don’t think that they are,” I said, answering honestly.

And when I say honestly, I mean honestly, because I didn’t think that they were having an affair. I knew it. Which is altogether different. Because while I might not have known the non-couple in front of me, I was certainly familiar with the other one bumping and grinding.

Leaving me with these thoughts:

• Be sure to ask the right questions; that way, one will always get the right answers.

• Most bartenders are not judgmental. But they aren’t blind either.

• “Discretion is the better part of valor,” decried the coward Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

• The old joke goes: “Be nice to the bartender because we know your wife. And your girlfriend too.” To which I might now add, “We also know your wife’s boyfriend and his wife as well.” Just saying.

Jeff Burkhart hosts ‘The Barfly Podcast.’ More at jeffburkhart.net.

Rebecca Fein, Director of Verity, the County’s Only Rape Crisis, Trauma and Healing Center

Locals

Cincinnatus Hibbard

Apr 28, 2026

Rebecca Fein, Director of Verity, the County’s Only Rape Crisis, Trauma and Healing Center

A gentle caution to my readers. This edition centers on a painfully charged topic: sexual assault in our communty.

Sexual assault covers a range continuum of criminal acts.

Its effect, therefore, is varied and can include shock, acute stress disorder, hypervigilance, PTSD fear triggers, avoidance, social withdrawal, numbness, loss of joy, sleep disruption, major depression, substance abuse, intimacy issues, lowered self-esteem and suicidal ideation.

Per RAINN—the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network—citing the Centers for Disease Control: Nearly 1 in 4 men and 1 in 2 women have experienced unwanted sexual contact in their lifetime.

Here, I remind myself to breathe.

The repercussions of sexual assault are here everywhere. Whether we know it or not, we confront them every day. They are in our every encounter.

I write with the delicate intention to make text of this ever-present subtext—and to bring community attention to Verity, Sonoma County’s sole rape crisis, trauma and healing center.

Established in 1974, Verity offers free confidential services to survivors of sexual assault and human trafficking. Their work spans intervention, healing and prevention. In this time, it is led by the able Rebecca Fein.

Cincinnatus Hibbard: Rebecca, what would you like to highlight?

Rebecca Fein: People don’t know how prevalent sexual assault and human trafficking are in our community, particularly human trafficking.

Your 2024 impact report shows intervention for 122 trafficking survivors. What factors give rise to trafficking in the North Bay?

Proximity to the City. The 101 corridor. High tourism associated with alcohol, cannabis and gambling. Labor trafficking associated with agriculture. Wealth. People are trafficked from outside the region, but also from within. We’re currently developing a marketing campaign addressing signs of exploitation among children—grooming via social media—educating both young people and the adults around them.

I understand Verity also does preventative work in schools with age-appropriate education at elementary, middle and high school levels. Tell me about your healing programs.

We partner with On the Margins to offer free of cost, one-to-one therapy and support groups. It is bicultural and bilingual.

Each person’s situations and needs are unique to them. We respond to them. All our services are survivor centered and survivor led. We provide the information and will support them along whatever path they choose to take. Sexual assault is inherently an experience that removes one’s autonomy.

Tell me about your funding.

Funding is a rollercoaster. We are 70–80% reliant on state grants, themselves funded by federal grants. Every year, we prepare for cuts. We are critically challenged right now. Get involved—support survivors through donations of your time or funds. Volunteers are a huge piece of what we do.

The question that really brought me to you is hard to calculate. I invite you to speculate: What effect has the election of a president with 28 public accusations of sexual assault—actively suppressing the Epstein files—had on the culture of rape in America?

Survivors are silenced. And we have noticed an emboldening of perpetrators, and less shame. I think of serially-accused former Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli announcing another run for office.

Could you give some general advice about how to support survivors we know?

We released a blog post very recently regarding the case surrounding Soft Medicine Sanctuary in Sebastopol that addresses how to support survivors.

First and foremost, believe them. Allow them to speak—to the degree they are ready and able. It’s different for different people, but the experience of retelling the story can be itself traumatic.

Learn more at ourverity.org. Verity’s 24/7 support and crisis line: 707.545.7273. The incident need not be recent.

Karen Francis DeGolia Rediscovers Her Vineyard Calling

Food & Drink

Amber Turpin

Apr 28, 2026

Karen Francis DeGolia Rediscovers Her Vineyard Calling

The story of Limerick Lane Cellars is anything but simple or expected. But through the twists and turns of the label’s evolution, the fact remains that this is a place where a true old-vine vineyard is celebrated.

Preserved, protected and revered, this estate that produces award-winning wine is a true landmark in the Northeast corner of Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley.

Owner Karen Francis DeGolia’s connection to Limerick Lane began in the early 1990s, when she was engaged to founder and winemaker Tom Collins as the estate came to life. She was deeply involved in the ranch during those formative years, witnessing the completion of the winery and its iconic bottle-shaped pool in 1993. When Collins passed away unexpectedly, DeGolia departed and channeled her energy into a remarkable corporate career.

Armed with a Dartmouth economics degree and a Harvard MBA, she rose through the ranks of the automotive world, serving as general manager of GM’s Oldsmobile division and later as a VP at Ford Motor Company, one of the youngest women to reach such heights in the industry.

DeGolia returned to Limerick Lane briefly in 2002, working harvest and pouring in the tasting room, but a CEO opportunity at an advertising agency soon pulled her away again. This time, she stayed connected to the area by purchasing the neighboring Ricci Vineyard, cementing her role as a grower and later a board member at Copia, The American Center for Food, Wine, and the Arts.

In 2021, she and her husband, Rick DeGolia, acquired the 12-acre Cypress Ridge Vineyards on Limerick Lane. Then a chance lunch with a neighbor revealed that Limerick Lane Cellars was seeking a new owner. The full circle decision was easy.

Nearly 30 years after first walking those vine rows, Karen DeGolia became the owner of Limerick Lane Cellars. The estate now spans 53 acres in the heart of the Russian River Valley, with winemaker Chris Pittenger crafting wine from these special old vines.

Amber Turpin: How did you get into this work?

Karen Francis DeGolia: Fate.

Did you ever have an ‘aha’ moment with a certain beverage? If so, tell us about it.

Understanding the profound history of 100-plus-year-old zinfandel vines.

What is your favorite thing to drink at home?

Limerick Lane Marquis.

Where do you like to go out for a drink?

Anyplace with an ocean view.

If you were stuck on a desert island, what would you want to be drinking?

Limerick Lane Rose.

Limerick Lane Cellars, 1023 Limerick Ln., Healdsburg, 707.433.9211, limericklanewines.com.

Visualizing Reform: Preparing for Post-Scandal America

Open Mic

Craig Corsini

Apr 28, 2026

Visualizing Reform: Preparing for Post-Scandal America

After several decades of gross misbehavior on the parts of three branches of government, the American people appear to be asking the rhetorical questions, “What if political corruption is bad? And what if campaigning against corruption is a winning issue?”

Recent polls have found that large shares of both Democrats and Republicans think their party focuses too little on corruption. Indeed, backers of both parties thought corruption was the biggest issue being ignored by both parties.

Wow, yes. Perhaps voters have their heads screwed on right. And also, how do they even know about the growing corruption problem? Long gone are the days when newspapers competed to expose official wrongdoing. There is nothing in today’s fragmented information landscape that is like past scandals pursued by dogged hordes of investigative reporters and orating TV correspondents.

Journalists fuss over candidate fundraising totals without mentioning that, for example, a single super PAC backed by the AI industry has already raised $75 million to spend in congressional races. That still falls behind the $171 million raised so far by a single cryptocurrency industry PAC. This spending will all be “independent,” and much of it will not be fully disclosed. Yet, with spending like this, these industries could effectively buy Congress.

Then there’s the orgy of self-enrichment. Forget the planned White House ballroom or the gilded doorknobs in the Oval Office. According to Forbes, President Donald Trump and his immediate family increased their net worth by $3 billion in one year by leveraging public power. Other analyses peg the one-year amount at $1.4 billion.

Opposition politicians have started to pound away. But it’s not enough to decry sleaze. Jaded voters think “everyone does it.” Indeed, the group End Citizens United in 2025 published a poll suggesting citizens thought Democrats were more corrupt than Republicans.

House Democrats recently announced a task force to assemble an anti-corruption agenda. Joe Morelle leads the drive. Morelle vowed months ago, “This is going to be the most significant governmental reform since Watergate.”

That’s a high bar. The Watergate scandal led to laws to curb presidential abuse and clean up politics: A public financing system sought to curb big money in presidential campaigns. The Inspector General Act of 1978 placed watchdogs in major federal agencies. The Budget Impoundment and Control Act aimed to ensure that Congress, not the president, retained power of the purse. The War Powers Act tried to curb executive warmaking.

After scandal comes reform. Not always, but that’s when it happens. What would a reform agenda look like today?

Craig Corsini is a writer and grandfather in Marin County.