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Finding a calm environment and consistent motivation from which to write can be tricky, so let’s share our presence and creativity with each other. Every writer needs to get quiet with their work, and we can do that, together, in a beautiful place. Join us in holding THE 222 as a space for writers; 4-6 PM on second Thursdays every month. September, 2024 – June, 2025.

Why do we dance? To express emotion; to share tacit understanding with each other; to permit soul a fresh embodiment of meaning. Dance affirms and celebrates being alive, creative, and connected. It is a long-hoped-for dream to invoke the spirit of dance at THE 222 by hosting an event intended for all ages, dance backgrounds, and experience levels.

A good storyteller can show us a whole world: a new version of our own or an otherworld offering a mirror for reflection. For this “open-mic” reading, we invite you to bring an original short story that can be read in ten minutes (or a ten-minute portion of a longer story that can stand alone). Eight readers will be able to sign up as they arrive; the moderator will hold each to the ten-minute limit. All are welcome to attend. Please indicate in your RSVP if you plan to share a story, and of what length.

Anna Magnani, the commedia dell’arte, and the music of Vivaldi are the highlights of this magnificent color film, called by Eric Rohmer “the Open Sesame of all Renoir’s work.” A movie about stage comedy, in which all activity and all space becomes theater. The story of Le Carrosse d’Or takes place in the 18th Century and centers around the coach which the Viceroy of Peru has had sent from Europe. His official mistress hopes that this will be among her prerequisites, but the Viceroy has fallen for the star of a traveling commedia dell’arte company.

Revel in selections from Delibes’ Lakme, Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Verdi’s La Traviata, and Bizet’s Carmen. Savor the music of Clara Schumann, Gustav Mahler, Charles T. Griffes, and more! Allow opera jewels, cabaret gems, and art song treasures to transport you on passionate, amusing, poignant journeys of life and love.

Ever wondered how a poem comes into being? Join Literary Arts Programmer Laurie Glover for an afternoon of building, shaping, and layering sentences to discover your own creative capacity! We will start with looking at images, choosing one that speaks to you, then you’ll be walked through a series of statements about the image. Through a further series of steps, you’ll discover how tiny changes affect the impact of a given sentence, and we’ll then draw on poetic forms to turn each person’s scattered thoughts into a thing of beauty.

Jacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in an age of high technology reached their apotheosis with Playtime. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-year-long, bank-breaking production, Tati again thrust the lovably old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, along with a host of other lost souls, into a baffling modern world, this time in Paris. A group of tourists, whose paths are only occasionally crossed by M. Hulot, wander through the interchangeable glass-and-steel skyscrapers which comprise modern-day Paris. Visual gags occur with such simultaneous abundance that the film demands countless viewings for each joke to be fully savored. The film’s second hour, the opening night activities at an expensive restaurant that is not quite ready to open, comprises one of the cinema’s most masterfully orchestrated comic set-pieces. With every inch of its super-wide frame crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, Playtime is a lasting record of a modern era tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion. (1967, 124 min, in English, German and French w/subtitles)

Cellist Tommy Mesa returns to THE 222 this season with bandoneon player and composer JP Jofre combining their considerable talents in a special program of tango music by Astor Piazzola and transcriptions by Jofre himself, one of Argentina’s foremost composers and bandoneon players.

With a small baroque ensemble, featuring soprano voice and trumpet, this event explores the themes of love through early music composers, both famous and lesser known. A set of Purcell songs chronicle romantic love and loss, a Pepusch English cantata explores love of country, and a riotous Handel cantata joyfully exclaims a love of life. Showcasing music that moves from mournful to bombastic, this concert features early music specialist performers.

San Francisco’s newest professional chamber choir, Vox Humana SF, directed by Don Scott Carpenter, made their triumphant debut this past February. THE 222’s own Choral Music Programmer, Sanford Dole, attended the concert and couldn’t wait to present them at THE 222. The program, Voyages, looks to be full of musical riches, including works by Giovanni Gabrieli, Johannes Brahms, and Gustav Mahler, as well as newer works by leading contemporary composers Eric Whitacre, Joan Tower, and Jake Heggie. In addition, there will be two world premieres from the group’s New Music Series.