"A Love Letter to San Jose" Workshop + Free Food

This Thursday there will be a workshop at City Hall discussing how to make Downtown San Jose's public spaces more inviting and active. After the workshop there will be free food and a movie! To sign up, just head over here.

Hermitage Brewing Company Hosts 6th Annual Meet the Brewers Festival on Feb. 14

The quintessential local beer event takes place this Saturday, Feb. 14, 1-5pm, as San Jose’s Hermitage Brewing Company presents their 6th annual Meet the Brewers beer festival as part of SF Beer Week. Hermitage is located at 1627 S. 7th St.

It’s certainly one of my favorite events of the year, and I’ve made sure to attend every one since 2011. And what timely coincidence that the beer fest takes place on Valentine's Day.

Once again, Moveable Feast will provide food trucks, and SJMADE will host a local artisan showcase.

There will be live music and 25 participating breweries pouring over 50 beers, including San Jose breweries Clandestine, Gordon Biersch, Hermitage, Santa Clara Valley Brewing and Strike.

Carolyn Hopkins-Vasquez – Director of Marketing for Hermitage and Tied House – takes great pride in this local aspect. “From our music acts to food trucks to SJ Made and the breweries, everyone is connected to this area, which makes the event really special. Because of the explosion of the craft beer scene, we also have some new breweries that many guests may not have tried. Lots of the beer poured at this festival are not available on the mass market, which sets us apart from other craft beer festivals.”

For the first time, the event will be held under a large festival tent in their private lot, as well as in parts of the brewery area.

Tickets are $40 if purchased in advance and $45 at the door on Saturday for any remaining tickets. For more information, including to purchase tickets and to see the complete list of breweries, visit the Eventbrite page.

Proceeds will benefit two non-profits: the Can Do MS organization and the Bay Brewers Guild.

Note: I strongly recommend purchasing tickets in advance as recent Meet the Brewers events have sold out. I also think that the picture perfect weather forecast (75 degrees at last check) will add to the popularity of this event.

Downtown San Jose is Getting a Fire Museum!

A few weeks ago the San Jose City Council unanimously approved the sale of the old Fire Station No. 1 at 201 N. Market Street to the San Jose Fire Museum. The museum's backers hope to open the museum by 2020 and show off one of the largest collections of antique fire vehicles and equipment in the country. Currently the collections are in a city warehouse which is not accessible to the public.

The museum officials are now in the process of raising $14 million to renovate, retrofit, and expand the building. If it ends up looking anything like the drawing below, it will be a huge asset to both Downtown and the San Jose Metro. More info in the source link below.

Source: The Merc

San Jose Stage Company presents Tony-Nominated Power Play "Venus in Fur" by David Ives --- February 4 through March 1

San Jose, CA – January 12, 2015 – San Jose Stage Company presents David Ives’ Tony Nominated Venus in Fur, with previews on February 4, 5, 6, press opening February 7, and running through March 1, 2015.

 

David Ives’ new play Venus in Fur has received multi-awards, including Tony Nomination for Best Play (2012). The play was also made into a Roman Polanski film, which premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, also receiving multiple awards.

 

Venus in Fur is a sexy, provocative and funny. When young actress Vanda arrives several hours late to her audition for a play based upon the nineteenth century erotic novel by author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (the inspiration for the term Masochism), the playwright-director, Thomas Novachek, is less than impressed. But Vanda's masterful performance flips the script on Thomas' expectations and turns the session into a tango for dominance between actress and director, woman and man. Hailed as "seriously smart and very funny" by The New York Times, VENUS IN FUR is a laugh-out-loud study of the politics of sex and power. David Ives’ modern adaptation of Venus in Fur is perfectly suited to The Stage in this mesmerizing two-person drama within a drama.

 

“The Stage is committed to presenting new work that provokes, engages, and deepens our perspectives,” noted Artistic Director Randall King. “David Ives’ new play Venus in Fur turns up the heat and raises the stakes in the classic battle of the sexes, illuminating timeless issues around gender, status and power -- we expect the play to stimulate, open up and expand the conversation.” 

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THE CAST:

 

Johnny Moreno* (Thomas Novachek) returns to The Stage, where he was last seen as Starbuck in The Rainmaker. Last season, at The Stage, Johnny portrayed MacHeath in The Threepenny Opera for which he received ‘Best Actor in a Musical’ at the Theatre Bay Area Awards (2014). Other roles for the company include Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Blade to the Heat, Gibraltar and the title role in Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile. His other theater credits include. Promises, Promises, Camelot, My Fair Lady and Period of Adjustment at SF Playhouse, Displaced at Marin Theatre Company, Mary Stuart at American Conservatory Theater and Pentecost at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. His television and film credits include Betas, Callback (winner of the Chicago Indie Fest for Best Film), Upside Out (with Olympia Dukakis), Garden of Eden and I’m Still Here.

 

Allison F. Rich* (Vanda), an Associate Artist with the Company, returns to The Stage, where she was seen as Lizzie in The Rainmaker. Last season, she portrayed Lucy in The Threepenny Opera and was nominated as Best Featured Actress in a Musical by Theatre Bay Area Awards. Other credits with the company include, Bonnie in the new musical Bonnie & Clyde, It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Reefer Madness: The Musical (where she also served as Musical Director), the World Premiere of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, the Regional Premiere of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (where she also served as Musical Director), the Regional Premiere of Reasons To Be Pretty and The Great American Trailer Park Musical. She has appeared at Oregon Cabaret Theatre, Capital Stage Company and 42nd Street Moon.

 

THE CREATIVE TEAM:

 

San Jose Stage Company’s production of VENUS IN FUR will be directed by Kimberly Mohne Hill. Set Design by Richard C. Ortenblad, Costume Design by Jean Cardinale, Lighting Design by Maurice Vercoutere and Sound Design by Cliff Caruthers.

 

RUN DATES: February 5 - March 1, 2015  

PREVIEWS:    Friday, February 4 & 5 at 7:30 pm, Saturday, February 6 at 8 pm

OPENING:       Saturday, February 7 at 8:00 pm

SHOWS:          Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 pm

                        Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm

                        Sunday Matinees at 2:00 pm

WHERE:          The Stage - 490 South First Street, San Jose, CA

TICKETS:        $25.00 - $65.00

                        408.283.7142 | www.thestage.org

                        Discounts for Students, Seniors and Groups

 

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About San Jose Stage Company: 

 

Now celebrating it’s 32nd season, San Jose Stage Company is the South Bay’s leading professional theatre. The Stage is an award-winning theatre recognized for its devotion to new and cutting-edge work and for its commitment to showcasing high-quality talent. 

 

Ranked the 2nd largest theatre and 8th largest performance arts organization in Silicon Valley (Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal), San Jose Stage Company is an award-winning theatre, most recently earning (4) Theatre Bay Area Awards, including Best Musical Production of the Year 2014 for ‘THE THREEPENNYOPERA’  held at ACT (San Francisco). The Stage has earned a reputation for artistic excellence by providing high quality, edgy theatrical experiences that engage, educate and provoke audiences. San Jose Stage Company has produced over 155 productions, including 13 world premieres and 45 regional new works. 

 

Annually, The Stage employs over 150 artists, serves a diverse audience of 30,000, offers five core education and outreach programs and has housed over 500 independent performance groups. Located at the Gateway to the City’s Arts and Entertainment District, San Jose Stage Company, the SoFA Districts first arts anchor organization, continues to promote San Jose’s stature as a burgeoning regional arts center by providing live theatre experiences that enrich the quality of life in the community.

 

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BART Expansion to San Jose Getting Some Help from Obama

In Obama's proposed budget, $1 billion is earmarked for California transit. San Jose gets a nice shout out, since $165 million of that is to continue the BART expansion in Silicon Valley. Have a look at the source link for more details on the transit plans for California.

Source: LA Times, Hatip to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

Saturday Stats: The San Jose Metro Has the #3 Highest GDP Per Capita in the World

GDP (Gross Domestic Product) represents the value of all goods and services produced withing a country's borders over the course of a year. GDP per capita is an offshoot metric that looks at the average amount each individual produces in a given area, and includes everyone in the population even if they do not work.

It turns out that San Jose has the highest GDP per capita in the US and the third highest in the entire world. Only Zurich and Oslo ranked higher. San Jose's GDP per capita came in at $77,440 per person while San Francisco was $66,790.

Also worth noting is that San Jose is one of only 32 metros in the US that have fully recovered from the recession.

Source: SiliconBeat

CBS Video on Downtown Retail

Below is a short video featuring Adam Mayberry (from the DH Company) talking about his concept for a pop-up retail district in Downtown San Jose made up of shipping containers. This would be great in a number of open parking lots that we currently have.

SAN JOSE (CBS SF) – Looking to revive retail in Downtown San Jose, one entrepreneur is hoping to create a pop-up shopping mall created out of shipping containers.

Adam Mayberry had big ideas and just a little cash. So he built a small store into a shipping container and placed it in Downtown San Jose for the holidays. It worked, well enough for him to make a go of it year-round, selling custom designed sports apparel.

“The idea behind the shipping container store is that businesses could test the waters such as myself in downtown,” Mayberry told KPIX 5.

Now he’s thinking bigger. Mayberry wants to take his single concept store and blow it up, creating a sort of pop-up shopping district made entirely of shipping container stores with built in cafes and sitting areas.

“If you string four or five of these together, in our case we want about 15, then you have a critical mass of businesses, advertising to their customers and in turn bringing customers to their neighbors,” Mayberry said.

He’s now trying to sell the idea to downtown landowners, including operators of parking lots that could be flipped into the city’s newest mini malls.

“With pop ups, there’s a lower barrier to entry, a lower cost to get in,” said Daniel Harris of the Knight Foundation.

The idea has some big supporters, including the Knight Foundation and the San Jose Downtown Association.

“This could be a step into a potential brick and mortar establishment,” said Scott Knies of the association. “It has promise. You could see this happening really easily with some of the open space that we have.”

Retail has been one of the big missing links in Downtown San Jose for about the last 45 years, ever since the big suburban shopping malls like Valley Fair started gaining in popularity. There are blocks and blocks of vacant store fronts in downtown, and the stores that are open are often spread out making window shopping difficult.

They are not the most attractive things. But backers say they don’t have to be, they just have to be better looking than the blighted closed up shops that downtown has now.

New Panda Mural in Downtown San Jose (UPDATE)

Cardinal2007 from the San Jose Development Forum snagged a bunch of great photos of the new Panda Mural on 1st Street between San Fernando and Santa Clara Streets. Since we won't have retail on this side of the street anytime soon, it's a brilliant design to entertain diners along 1st Street. This may now be my favorite mural Downtown.

UPDATE: For more information on the artist and the mural, check out the PandaBloggin site over here!