Live theater is back, my friends, but, perhaps just as importantly, so are in-person galas. Glide’s legacy galas is just one of many returning in-person fundraisers that also includes virtual events. And if you have not yet been to the Legion of Honor’s Last Supper in Pompeii exhibit yet, August is your last chance. The exhibit closes on the 29th.
Aug 1 Gilroy Garlic Festival
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Allium lovers rejoice – the festival is back, creatively reimagined with a drive-through Gourmet Alley, available for pre-order.
Aug 2 Continuous Clay
Passion for the primordial and unforgiving nature of clay is at the heart of an exhibit at MarinMOCA that showcases nine Bay Area artists who focus on the medium, through September 5.
Aug 3 A Delicate Balance
In collaboration with the City of Sonoma, the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art opened a public art installation at the Sonoma Plaza with eight large scale sculptures from Bruce Beasley, Catherine Daley, Peter Hassen, and Jun Kaneko that explore the balance between nature and technology, through October 19.
Aug 4 Zeitgeist
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The Mission’s most notorious bar and beer garden hosts Bay Area stand-up comedians as guests enjoy drinks and dinner while seated at tables.
Aug 5 Dick Conte
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The Bay Area jazz musician brings his sound to Murphy’s Irish Pub in Sonoma.
Aug 6 Jurassic Park
Let your heart fill with gratitude that humans have not (yet) figured out how to transform dinosaurs’ ancient genetics into modern day marvels as you watch them eclipse every unsuccessful effort to contain them.
Aug 7 Seafood Galore
The Golden State Salmon Association joins forces with Tomales’s William Tell House Restaurant and Inn for an afternoon of savoring California king salmon, both grilled and served as poke, along with halibut ceviche and oysters at a fundraiser to support efforts at restoring wild salmon.
Aug 8 French Antiques Fair
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Also known as the French Market, an all-outdoors shopping experience at the Marin Center is a showcase for furniture, dolls, toys and bric-a-brac with a francophone lilt.
Aug 9 Tim Higgins
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The Wall Street Journal tech and auto reporter discusses his deep dive inside Elon Musk and Tesla’s bid to build the world’s greatest car in a new book, Power Play, in a virtual event.
Aug 10 Road Trip

Continuing its tradition of summer performances in the open air, Transcendence Theatre Company takes the show to their home theater, Glen Ellen’s Jack London State Historic Park, for an epic musical tour and Broadway sing-along, through August 29.
Aug 11 Rancho Las Baulines
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In the history room at the Bolinas Museum, learn about the stories and characters of these sister towns, born of the 1830’s Mexican land grant, through August 15.
Aug 12 Nine Days
In limited release but showing in San Rafael, a film directed by Edson Oda follows a reclusive man who is conducting a series of interviews with human souls for a chance to be born.
Aug 13 Through the Stage Door

Conceived and directed for film by David Paul, a showcase of Merola Opera’s 2021 emerging singers, pianists and directors reflects a new approach to the digital demands of opera as the art form navigates post-Covid performance.
Aug 14 GLIDE Legacy Gala
A blend of in-person and virtual events, including live music and a Q&A panel, as well as fund-raising, invites the Bay Area community to reconnect and recommit to creating positive change.
Aug 15 Fog City Flea Market

Well-edited vintage clothing plus jewelry, apparel and accessories will be available all day on Sundays on the first floor of the marketplace, through December 19.
Aug 16 Paula West
A jazz impresario is joined by Adam Shulman on piano, Ed Cherry on guitar, and Jerome Jennings on drums for a residency at Feinstein’s, through August 28.
Aug 17 Alice Sutro
Featuring 22 drawings of Healdsburg locals on glass canvases, an exhibit at the Harmon Guest House begs the question: can town residents know a hotel in their town as a tourist might?
Aug 18 The Enduring Mark
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Highlighting a major new gift, “Six Centuries of Drawing from the Gray Collection” showcases eighty drawings spanning multiple centuries of Western art of the human figure, including works, Paul Klee, Juan Gris, and Joan Miro, now on view at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
Aug 19 TheLegion of Honor: Last Supper in Pompeii

Focused exclusively on what its citizens were eating and drinking when the volcanic ash began to rain down on them in A.D. 79, an exhibition presents evidence from recent excavations that shed light on the gustatory delights of ordinary people, through August 29.
Aug 20 Jacob Joliff Band
The mandonlinist and former member of Yonder Mountain String Band fronts a next generation blue grass band at a seated show.
Aug 21 Not Your First Goat Rodeo
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After an extended year of no live performances, Yo-Yo Ma rejoins the musicians of the original Goat Rodeo Sessions after a decade’s absence to create a uniquely American sound that joins classical, folk and bluegrass.
Aug 22 Open Mic
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Hosted by Jefferson Mars and John Lehre, a stand-up-focused evening dedicated to the art of aspiring comedians is back in Sebastopol.
Aug 23 Outstanding in the Field
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Break bread and breathe deep as part of a meal served outdoors at Cowgirl Creamery at Tresch Family Ranch. Seasonal dinners honor where food comes from by eating it where it is grown.
Aug 24 George Fok
Commissioned as part of the large-scale touring exhibition Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything, Fok’s Passing Through pays tribute to Cohen’s five-decade career in an immersive video work that includes concert footage and many memories, through January 2, 2022.
Aug 25 Santa Barbara at SFMOMA
In collaboration with a scriptwriter, a casting director, and a group of actors from the 1980s soap opera of the same name, Moscow-born artist Diane Markosian weaves together the family’s final days in Russia with an idealized California experience and the reality of her immigrant experience, through November 7.
Aug 26 After Dark
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Thursday evenings at the Exploratorium are set aside for adult members only with enhanced programming, such as Holographic Panoptics for the Mind and Art for Action, aimed at grown-ups’ aged brains.
Aug 27 Cedars Harmony
Presented jointly with the San Anselmo Arts Commission, Cedars organized a show presenting artists and their sense of what harmony meant to them during a year-plus of isolation and discord. The show closes today.
Aug 28 Live Comedy
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The San Francisco Athletic Club bar in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood hosts comedians featured on Conan, James Corden, SF Sketchfest, and Comedy Central’s Clusterfest in their tented, heated patio.
Aug 29 Tower of Power
In a change, advance reservations are required for events at Stern Grove’s free summer concert series, including the season finale Big Picnic, featuring Oakland’s legendary soul-funk-R&B group.
Aug 30 Pershing Square
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Stop by the Presidio’s Main Post, part of what archaeologists believe was the western portion of the Spanish-colonial El Presidio quadrangle, where park visitors are invited to witness live-site archaeological research in action.
Aug 31 New Time
A major survey of values, strategies and ways of life in feminist art post-2000 reflects the multi-faceted and complex reality of the movement in Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century, through January 30, 2022.
For more on Marin:
- MarinMOCA’s Altered Book Exhibit and Fundraiser Supports Local Artists
- 7 U.S. Athletes to Watch at the Summer Olympics
- 7 Top Authors to Add to Your Summer Reading List
Christina Mueller is a long-time Bay Area food writer. She hails from the East Coast and has spent way too much time in South America and Europe. She discovered her talent as a wordsmith in college and her love of all things epicurean in grad school. She has written for Condé Nast Contract Publishing, Sunset, and the Marin Independent Journal, among others. She volunteers with California State Parks and at her child’s school, and supports the Marin Audubon Society, PEN America, and Planned Parenthood. When she is not drinking wine by a fire, she is known to spend time with her extended family.s the Assistant Editor at Marin Magazine and a graduate of Elon University where she studied Professional Writing and Fine Art. Born and raised in San Francisco/Marin, she loves traveling just as much as coming home to the Bay Area. She has curated a sophisticated palate for food, travel and culture and uses her travels as an outlet to develop her photography portfolio and hone her writing craft.