My little one and I made our way to Zellerbach Hall to attend an Alvin Ailey Dance performance. This was her first time attending a live musical dance production (I am disregarding her attendance to Disney on Ice for this one). Zellerbach Hall is located within the campus of UC Berkeley. It is a spacious, beautiful building with ample seating to provide various viewpoints. For my daughter's first performance, I purchased the front row directly in front of the stage to ensure she had zero interference with her view. Her view... my five year old slept in my arms during majority of the performance only seeing the first and final dance performance. If you have never attended an Alvin Alley performance, you are truly missing beauty and precision and story telling and movement and so many other wondrous things at its finest. This was my third time attending and I leave so fulfilled by the emotion evoked from the performances, dancers and storytelling. Parking can be a hassle as it's primarily street parking and possible garage parking if you arrive early. We were fortunate to find street parking across from the old church. Public transportation via BART or bus are options. From BART, expect to walk 20-30 minutes (depending on your speed). My daughter and I made a day of it, stopping for a slice of pizza then making our way to frozen yogurt prior to the show. read more

We have come here twice in November 2025: Vienna Boys Choir and Moana Live-to-film. Both performances were spectacular, ushers showed us to the seating, and drinks and snacks for sale. For the Moana performance, there was a parking lot specifically designated for families going to see it, and you had to show a ticket to get in. The problem is not the venue itself; the problem lies within the fact that it's Berkeley driving and parking. As long as you plan to arrive at least half an hour before showtime, you should be fine. read more

I've been going here for years but the ticket office over the past two years said I have 2 accounts which means multiple phone calls and on site visits to get my tickets and no access to my account. They told me again and again this problem would be solved overnight. They make Comcast look good. read more

My review is tilted. Got here early on a cool evening, and purchased a "hot chocolate" it's looks like dirty water, has hints of sugar and a slight overtones of chocolate is being kind. Why bother? I'm confident the show will make up for it. read more

Cal Performances - A $4 styro cup of self service hot chocolate. It's AWFUL! - Performing Arts Near Me - Berkeley, California

Over the past few years, I've had the opportunity to take in the Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall. I've seen the comedy of Seth Meyers, singing of Audra McDonald and the acting of Mikhail Baryshnikov. This weekend, I brought my mom, sister and nephew to see the Shanghai Acrobats. It was their first visit and they were impressed with the venue and the performance. For this show, I thought it would be better to be closer to the stage and was able to get seats on the sixth row side left orchestra. It was great to see some of the acts close up and to see the facial expressions of the performers as well. It was well worth the $24 ticket price and my mom, sister and nephew wants to come back again. read more

Walking toward the building, complete in concrete, it appears to be of typical state university architecture. Inside, I'm still not impressed. Certainly it's not comparable to say Gammage Arts Center at AZ State or the beautiful theatres in San Francisco, but the decent bar/cafe was slightly redeeming. What won me over was that even though I sat in the balcony where my nose could bleed, I had great views of the stage and the seats were comfortable. My big "boo" was that the balcony was a bit stinky. It had that "I'm an old building musty scent". read more

I recently took my 11 year old daughter and my husband to see a performance of Shen Yun at Zellerbach Hall. I expected it to be what Cal Performances advertised it as: "a triumph of collaboration, bringing together over a hundred of the world's foremost classically trained Chinese dancers, choreographers, musicians, and vocalists." What I did NOT know was that it is actually put on by the Falun Gong religious group. It was full of religious and political proselytizing. I left the performance feeling as if I had been completely scammed. I would never have gone (much less taken my daughter, and paid over $300) if I had known this beforehand. I blame Cal Performances for not being forthright and honest about what this show really is. It was even advertised as being appropriate for kids. Shame on them! read more

This place almost has it right. They sent out this holy-crap-it's-so-freakin-hard-to-park-you-better-come-2-hours-early letter to us, so we hauled the gang over plenty early to get to see Circus Oz. The theater (no 3 rings, but I digress) is wide and fairly basic, but you feel close to the stage and the sound does well in the space. Circus Oz itself is so cool - acrobats are amazing, and make you want to run to the gym. So, why 3 stars? One major problem: they do not have enough food. In fact they ran out before the show, and then again at intermission. WTH? And I mean they ran out - nada, nothin. Sorry sister, etc. So me and the kids just sat and starved, then ran home and grabbed a Korean food feast to tide us over until morning. I will not be running back. read more

One of several venues used by Cal Performances - now celebrating its centennial season - this 2,089-seat theater is located on the UC Berkeley campus. Its bland exterior is matched by a bleak auditorium that exudes no warmth whatsoever. While sightlines and acoustics are near-perfect, seating is very uncomfortable. Not in the mood to deal with either bridge traffic or area parking problems when we went to see Broadway diva Audra McDonald in concert, we opted to take BART . . . be forewarned that the closest station is a long schlep away, so think twice about doing it in a heavy rain. If you're planning on a meal pre- or post-performance, there's not much in the way of fine dining in the immediate vicinity. read more

Cal Performances - Performing Arts Near Me - Berkeley, California

The good- Great sightlines, even sitting in the very last row of the balcony. Awesome acoustics. Relatively cheap tickets (face value for Sufjan Stevens = $25 plus ticketbastard charges) The bad- No ushers in the balcony! I almost tripped down the entire row of stairs trying to find my seat. It's in the east bay and I really hate crossing that damn bridge. read more

Here are some of my monetary experiences with Cal Performances: $12 for the Kirov Ballet $0 for Bill Gates $12.50 for Guangzhou Ballet $12.50 for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company $24 for front-and-center seats at Circus Oz $20 for Altan $12.50 for Yo-Yo Ma and Silk Road Ensemble $13 for Alvin Ailey $7 for Michael Pollan (though i dont know why this is not free for students) $20 for Afro-Cuban All Stars $25 for Jean-Yves Thibaudet etc, etc. I don't think I spent over $200 in my four years here (thanks to the Best BOGO Deals Ever) but I saw so many memorable, once-in-a-lifetime performances. If you're a college student, it would be a travesty to not take advantage of the CalPerf deals. (Students automatically pay half price, and more often than not, there are additional "buy one get one free" sales as the performance date draws near). Now that I've moved into a new occupation in life, I feel dismayed that I'm subjected to... *shudder* full price tickets. (Craning my neck to its full swing so that I can view a performance from the far left back row of the mezzanine? And paying $70 for the privilege? Is this what it means to grow up?? No thanks. I'll just stay home and watch the grainy footage on Youtube with a bucket of popcorn.) Of course, cheap tickets go hand-in-hand with a cheap venue. But who's complaining? When, during intermission, you're suffused in the dance of a hundred twinkling lights glancing off the darkness of the glass windows, obscuring the street view of Bancroft, it doesn't even feel like you're in Berkeley anymore. (That is of course, 'til you leave Zellerbach, all glowing and elated from the performance, walk 10 blocks in the blistering cold to locate your car, and find a $50 parking ticket perched meanly on your car window.) Which ties directly into my next point: Parking is difficult. Be sure to get to Zellerbach early (and I mean something like 2 hours early) if you must drive. Walking is always the best option. Tickets should also be booked far in advance of the performance date. Every Zellerbach performance is world class, but some are also immensely popular, and good seats sell out fast. If you know that David Sedaris or Yo-Yo Ma is coming in April, book your tickets in September. It is far easier to do so at the ticket office than online (where you are charged a hefty convenience fee on top of the ironic inconvenience of not being sure which seats are available up to the minute.) As an aside, you don't have to be 5'6 to be able to see from the mezzanine. I am 5'3, and have enjoyed many a performance from the top floors. You will however, have to lean forward for the better parts. Following the rule of most venues, do not book side seats. You will spend the entire performance goosenecking for a view, but to no avail- the far sides of the stage are simply obscured for such unfortunates. After all the diligent prep, all that's left to do is enjoy! :) The yearly performance line-ups are great, and I will be back for as long as I can pass for 21, or until Cal changes the format of the student ID cards... whichever comes first. read more

Agreed, this is not the most spectacular or beautiful of playhouses/concert halls, but I did really like the size. I came here to see "Hell's Kitchen Dance" with Mikhail Baryshnikov and was really happy to discover that our last-minute tickets in the upper side balcony still had relatively close-up views. It was kind of crappy that some of the seats up there are on a diagonal, so if you come with a cuddle buddy be prepared to ... well, not cuddle. Parking was easy in the downstairs garage, and Berkeley's campus was very pretty, if slightly haunted-feeling (no students; it's summer). Three stars to the theatre but a definite five stars to the show... if you're heading to NYC soon, check it out! "The Russian" can still dance a mean ballet! read more

Good programming, some acoustic problems Saw a taping of "Wait, wait... don't tell me" and we missed A LOT. The place holds a lot of people and the sound system was just too damn quiet. My friends were in orchestra seats, we were in the front of the side balcony. Both spots were bad. You couldn't hear any of the introductions of the panelists or guests, and some of the funniest jokes were just lost. Seats on the upper wings aren't facing the stage! You have to either sit side-saddle or crane your neck the whole night. Boo to that. Sonny Rollins concert was great. Good sound and better seats. read more

After 5 years of access to the Kennedy Center, I was excited to see what arts venues in the Bay Area had to offer. And they offer a lot. THe Cal Performances series is like the Washington Performing Arts Society...but better - my goodness, this year, there's speaking and clasical music,and ballet and alvin ailey and...well a lot. Zellerbach is a great venue. The orchestra isnt bad, especially in the center, though if you can spring for Mezz seats for perfomances where seeing is important (dance, theater) do it...but its not necessary for music performances cause the acoustics are nice. I'm definitey going to a lot of performances here. read more

What a mystifying bundle of contradictions! On one hand, as others have noted, the programming is excellent. I'm always hearing about great stuff coming to Zellerbach. I just bought my first tickets, so I can't comment personally on the facility yet. But I can't believe that at least two people here have stated that there doesn't seem to be a bad seat in the house, when their ticket map has to have a special code for seats in which you can't see anything if you're under 5'6"! (Tons of them in the mezzanine, don't know about other levels.) Makes it easy to believe that there are indeed wings where the seats are basically perpendicular to the stage, as somebody else said. But the real killer for me is the ticket-purchasing process. I seriously just spent half an hour buying two tickets online. There's the ever-present problem with buying tickets online, which is that you load the seat map, click on seats, and it tells you "oh, sorry, somebody else just grabbed those, try reloading." I went through a couple rounds of that, but I don't see any way they could get around it. But then AFTER you pick your seats, it has you register. So somebody else can grab the seats while you're setting up your account. I type crazy fast, and I still lost my seats. Reload again. Find more seats. Holy crap, those ones cost ten dollars more apiece than the ones directly on the other side of the aisle? Find more seats at the original price. Try to buy them. Get rejected repeatedly because the card I have with me is my wife's card and it won't let me change the billing name to my wife's name. Or rather, it will let me change it, it just won't save the change. Create a new account under her name. Select the seats again. Some kind of error occurs in the system and it decides that the two seats it just let me select are already selected and can't go in the cart. Give up and pick the ones that cost $10 more. Get to the checkout page - $240?!?! Oh: it kept all four seats in the cart. Remove those, enter the debit card information, and prepare to enjoy some tickets. But wait: it won't take the card info because even though it all matches up now, I didn't put in a DONATION amount. What donation? I'm buying tickets! In fact, not only am I buying $55-a-seat tickets from our savings, I'm also paying the $9 convenience charge that the front page of the website warned me they add on for phone and online orders. Just so I won't have to go down there in person this afternoon and risk finding out that (a) there are no seats left because I waited three hours to buy tickets for a big-deal-one-time-only event, or (b) they're closed because it's a holiday weekend. In FACT, not ONLY am I paying $55 plus $55 plus $9, I'm ALSO paying $4 per TICKET for... it doesn't even say. $9 is the "per order" fee and $4 per ticket is the "per ticket" fee, but for what? How many "processing" fees can there be? It's not Ticketmaster, for crying out loud. So I guess that maybe it just can't have that field be blank. There's no other indication of what is wrong with the donation field, other than a warning message that I have to put something in there. So I enter 0, re-enter all my card info, and submit it again. And it pops up a red error message telling me that the minimum *donation* is $25 to cover all of their many processing costs. Gaaaaah!!! I should just give up, probably, but I've invested all this time in it and I know how excited my wife will be when I surprise her with what we're going to go see. I don't want to give up. I'll squeeze the extra frigging $25 "donation" in. But I'm not sure I will ever, ever, ever go back to a Cal Performances event. Our $110 worth of tickets ended up costing $148 after all their fees! And, evidently, with no guarantee that we'll even be facing the stage. read more

The first time I set foot into this huge hall was in my freshman year of college, to hear a talk by Claude Levi-Strauss. Sure, I thought, I'd love to hear the founder of Levi's! I wear Levi's after all! Actually, I went b/c I had met a hot anthro major in a miniskirt who invited me to the talk, for, truth be told, I don't give a whit about the jeans industry. I found soon that Claude Levi-Strauss, among the last great intellectuals of his generation, right up there with Michel Foucault (who did NOT write Foucault's Pendulum, apparently), has nothing to do with denim. That didn't keep the 5 level hall from being completely full that warm afternoon. And I don't quite know whatever happened to the lovely anthropologist in the miniskirt. But that day initiated more wonderful memories, thanks to student rush tix: Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Harlem Dance, Alvin Ailey, Oakland Ballet, Trisha Brown, Bobby McFerrin, Jane Goodall, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, Taiko Drummers... Know that for many acts, Zellerbach is *the* Northern Californian venue, if not *the* West Coast venue. Get your out your credit card and calendar, and get your tix. Likes/Dislikes: It's a great venue, where you'll feel comfy in your ah, Levi's. read more

I love this performance series that's put on by UC Berkeley. I go nuts practically every year, because they bring in seriously *amazing people*. Performances are usually in Zellerbach Hall or the Greek Theater on UC Berkeley's campus. This year, the highlights are: Sonny Rollins, Joshua Redman, American Ballet Theater and of course Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. *does a little dance of anticipation* read more

Cal performances really brings an impressive array of performers to Berkeley. The recital we went to last night was world class: Kiri Te Kanawa and Frederica Von Stade together in quite an intimate theatre. As an arts organization, Cal Performances puts together events that you'd only expect from bigger players like the SF Opera. So good! The problem with Cal Performances is that most of the patrons are basically old. I don't mean to sound like an agist, but it's a university affiliated venue. We need to get some students in there, or at least people who could plausibly pass for students. Bring out the youth! read more

Ah, karma you mysterious vixen. Here's a story brief story about balance: I stopped in briefly to buy a coke at a local liquor store. As I came out 5 min later I noticed someone's car had been broken into. Glass everywhere. It took me 5 seconds to realize that it was my car and my bag (ipod, palm pilot) was gone. Ever play that game where you substitute "fuck" for every word in a sentence? Or a paragraph? Or a two hour hate filled rant? Anyways, the day sucked! Right until I talked to my SO- She had scored a couple of free tickets to YoYo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble at Zellerbach hall. woah. Needless to say, they were amazing. The show was everything you want good music to be- rousing and transcendant. So I spent the am cussing out humanity and the evening feelin harmonious with, well, everything. I didn't notice anything special about this place except it was the site where karma took my fucked day and turned it around. It's all about balance. Sweet kick ass balance. read more

(This review is only on the programming by Cal Performances. Zellerbach Auditorium itself is quite underwhelming. It seems like a lot of other reviews here have more to do with Zellerbach than Cal Performances itself.) The programming by Cal Performances offered me as much of if not more of an education as I got in the classrooms at Berkeley. I saw Mark Morris Dance here every year as a student amongst lots of other concerts and live performances. Over the years I had also seen Alvin Ailey, Herbie Hancock, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, various other awesome live shows and David Sedaris if I hadn't had to give up my tickets post-tonsillectomy. How I miss it so!! I still get their catalogue and really should call to opt out of the mailing list, because every time I get it I just yearn to be a Cal student again (for the half-price tix). read more

I've been here for two performances. I enjoyed the first one immensely, and I didn't care much for the other one. The seating needs some improvement. The wine selection was okay, but the alcohol made the second performance more bearable. read more

Cal Performances - Peter Cincotti & Co. - Performing Arts Near Me - Berkeley, California

5 stars for the performances, 1 star for the venue. Its so depressing. We've seen everyone from Stephen Hawking to Wait, Wait don't Tell me, to Youssou N'dor and Cesaria Evora, and various assorted tangos and ballets. Oh, and Wynton Marsalis (man, was he good!). But the interior of Zellerbach always makes me want to go to sleep. Its so drab gray concrete left over from an East European cold-war country. And I get the genre, its very nice, but not for a theater. I like something a little more traditional. With a wee bit of color or velvet, or gold, or something! The choose your own subcriptions are a great deal if the shows are good, and then you can always change to another show at the last minute if you need to. Except then the seats aren't as good. Anyway... like the music, but what a sleepy venue! read more

The programming that Cal Performances offers is quite amazing. I've seen some spectacular shows over the years. However, sometimes they have shows that are just meh. It's the diamonds in the rough that really pull their ratings up. I would have liked more international fare and fewer dance troupes. The ticket purchasing system also really needs to be updated for the 21st century. They also need to do a better job of advertising discount tickets to students. If they just sold half of their empty seats, they could easily drop ticket prices for everyone. Pro-Tip: Students get 50% off... in case you didn't bother reading my review and just wanted some pro-tips... hahaha. read more

Berkeley, the only time that I'm visiting this city is to watch CAL football games and Zellerbach Hall performance. Walking around campus, I was surprised that doesn't reek of weed smell. ^_^ We were able to find event parking for $6 and it's right across the campus. The parking guy even gave us $2.00 coupon for our next event. I like Zellerbach Hall, the first time Mr & I were here we saw the modern day Cinderella by Diablo Ballet, It was pretty entertaining. And we got free appetizers and chocolate strawberry. And yesterday, we truly enjoyed the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. Most of the crowds were foreigners, French and Swedish, pretty cool. Between Beethoven and Schumann, I prefer Beethoven. My fav. is the Piano Concerto #1 in C Major. Op. 15. It was fantastic. They got us hook and we ended up getting 2 of their cd's. (yeah . were suckers) ^_^ The orchestra even gave 2 additional encore songs. And I was happy that Mr didn't fell asleep & like it. Also we purchased our tix's through Goldstar and as always, we have great orchestra seats for an affordable price. That you can't beat! read more

I highly recommend of it!!! Always great new performances that are carefully chosen by talented people. Great value for your money! Always fun! read more

Ballet, modern dance, and opera performances, world musicians, classical musicians, inspiring lectures ... great prices! Take BART and walk up! Enjoy the many cheap places to eat before or after your show! Walk around campus if you drove in too early... I am really grateful for this place. read more

This isn't a review of Zellerbach Hall, which I think is a pretty subpar venue, but of Cal Performances and what it provides. They really host a fantastic and diverse number of musicians, dance companies, writers, etc., etc. This is such a steal for students -- seriously, shame on you if you're a Berkeley student and never take advantage of Cal Performances. I saw the American Ballet Theatre last fall for ~$30 (50% off student discount), and in the spring, I got $10 rush tickets for the State of Georgia Ballet -- orchestra, 9th row from the stage. It doesn't really get any better than that. read more

Cal Performances is a rarity for the Bay Area-- world class performances in a world class venue and it's always an honor for me to make the trip from San Francisco. In 20+ years of visiting this venue, I have never been disappointed and that is saying a great deal. Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco is trying to catch up but they are still years away from this "well oiled machine" in terms of delivering a complete, satisfying patron experience. First to the performances. Last night I saw Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. They are to me the top in their category. Dance so precise, so stunning that it looks spontaneous and unrehearsed. As a former dance student I can only imagine how many hours it takes to pull off a feat like this. I didn't care for the music itself in the first piece but the dancers were incredible. The second very short piece called Awassa Astrige/Ostrich was beyond magnificent. Just watching the man's arms was a testimony not only to the bird but to the hours and hours of practice at the bar and at the gym. In short, Ailey's dancers, each and very one of them are stunning. The venue has top dancers, top musicians, some theater and many of them from around the world that you simply wouldn't see anywhere else. This season's offerings include a Twyla Tharp anniversary tour ( she used to grace their stage for years), Mark Morris,, Renee Fleming, Kronos Quartet, a unique collaboration between public radio's Ira Glass and some dancers, Monterey Jazz Festival and others on tour. The food at Cal Performances is top rate, comes from a local Oakland Bakery, Grace Street and for under $20 but over $10 they have pre and intermission light meals like Cold Noodle Salad, Tortillas, Seared Tuna Plated and even Chickpea crusted Salmon with couscous and the best part is small tables, long tables and whether you are seated or standing huge windows that overlook the campus grounds. Best of all the people watching is divine and it's very much a multicultural audience. You can buy performance souvenirs. .There are plenty of bathroom stalls. You are greeted by an entire, well dressed usher team so there is always someone on the floor when any kind of question arises. These are well trained ushers and even though most are volunteer's efficiency and professionalism prevails. That's what I mean by the "well oiled machine concept". I arrive about 1.5 hours early so actually get street parking or you can pay $10 on Bandcroft near Dana and walk a block to Zellerbach Hall where most of the performances take place. The best thing about arriving early is it's a drop dead gorgeous campus to walk, students are often out performing informally either dance or last night it was drums and Telegraph Avenue at Bandcroft is filled with eateries where you can dine for less than $10 at SF Soup Company, Chipotle, Smart Alec's and other local eateries. Even the chains here are decent and you pick up the student vibe and can enjoy entering into that world for an evening. There are also retail stores and a unique Chinese Bakery called Sheng Kee which despite being a chain is quite the experience where you go around a large u and select your choices directly out of glass cases. I recommend making it a night out. Try to avoid the $15 private parking stall and of course BART and BUSES are the other, even easier option. This is Berkeley at its best! read more

Most of my Cal performance experiences have been magical, but I have to comment in particular about last Saturdays performance and some that have been similar. We went to see Oliver Mitykudzi and his band. They are fabulous, but before long audience members jumped up and began dancing in the aisles. The problem is that the seated audience members could no longer see anything other than dancers who were at best distracting. Zellerbach is not a club. It is a concert hall. Dancing, if at all, should be limited to the sides so that the view of the performers is not blocked. There is much good to say about Cal performances. Diversity of programming, inclusion of shows for children, classical and seasonal fare. Thats all good. Consider taking Bart if you are coming from San Francisco. The walk through the redwoods is soothing as opposed to the frenetic parking dance. Ill be back, but not to hear a musical offering where people will spoil my view and overall experience. read more

Do not go to this venue. It's hot as balls and they either dont have or wont use A/C. You will be miserable.

saw CAKE here and it was a good time had by all. heard everything just fine. didn't seem to be a bad seat in the house. cheaper fees than ticketmaster, too. can't wait to hit another show here. read more

maybe cal performances needs to start mandating a mandatory performance etiquette class before people ruin the performances here. seriously, who TALKS during a PERFORMANCE? and im not sure what was up with the stage hand who kept walking back and forth during the songs. it was quite distracting. read more

Cal Performances has a huge variety of shows every year. They have half-price tickets for Berkeley students and also have a Rush program where you can sometimes get tickets for $20 at the last minute (call before you go if you're counting on the cheap tix!). I've seen a lot of amazing shows here--YoYo Ma, Alvin Ailey, Arlo Guthrie, Baba Maal, Sweet Honey in the Rock. The Berkeley crowd is laid back even at the more "artsy" events. read more

I went to go see Alvin Ailey at Zellerbach and thought that the dancers were amazing. The venue, however, didn't do as well. I decided to get the mid-priced tickets. Not the most expensive, but not the cheapest, which put me in the Tiers. To my dismay, it became clear as soon as the performance started that a good portion of the stage was obscured by the border of the curtain. Think of trying to see the end of a long and narrow box from an off angle. For the first half of the show there was almost always a couple of dancers that I couldn't see at all. The end of a duet was completely invisible to me. I didn't expect to be able to see everything front, center, and close-up, but I did expect to be able to see the whole performance. After all, I did pay full price for the tickets. There was nothing in the purchase process that indicated that there would be any problem seeing the performance from my seats. I complained at intermission and was moved, but half of the performance was already gone. Calling the ticket office later didn't help much as I got the "all sales are final" run around. It is disingenuous to sell an obscured seat as though it were an upgraded seat and unprofessional to set up the stage in such a way that the audience can't see part of the show. Beware of the Tiers, you may not be able to see! UPDATE: The ticket office refunded one of my tickets, which is a nice gesture. read more

I don't recognize a lot of the performers at Zellerbach Hall, but I always enjoy it when Mark Morris comes to town, and we also caught "the Ethicist" from the NY Times Magazine in the fall. As a result of that experience, I would be careful to avoid any performance that featured question and answer, because it was full of pompous, intellectual types who were turned on by the drone of their own voices. read more

Wow. What a star-studded line-up these guys present every year in a relatively small city like Berkeley, very impressive. Very eclectic, but the best of whatever genre is put on. Tickets aren't always really cheap, but the mini-subscriptions of three concerts both discounted and exchangeable makes subscribing to Cal Performances an easy decision. The Zellerbach is a horrible venue (not their fault), so luckily a lot of performances are in nearby FCC or other better venues. read more

I've had some of the most transcendent experiences of my life here... I've seen Mark Morris' L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato twice at Zellerbach, and it truly changed me both times. Seeing the SF Ballet in the nosebleeds (for pretty much the same price as a floor seat at a MM performance) really doesn't do much for me by comparison. read more

The 50% discount for Cal students rocks (for students), & if you sign up for their mailing list you can get even further discounts -- you can't beat the deals where you buy 1 ticket at your student price, & then get 1 FREE. & you can use that free ticket for anyone, not just a Cal student. Love it. Personally, I really like Zellerbach. I've had seats on the Mezzanine, on the balcony, & in the front, middle, & back of the main floor for various performances. Yes, the back of the main floor sort of really sucks if you're seeing something that you really want to *see*, but if you're going for a concert it doesn't really matter where you sit, in my opinion. They get a lot of really great performances each season. Some of the things I've seen there: - Chinese ballet: I'd never seen a ballet before, so I didn't really know what to expect & can't compare it to other ballets. It was extremely beautiful, but without the program I never would've understood what was going on... haha - Bunraku: Japanese puppet theatre. It's a very traditional art & they had English captions above the stage so that everyone could follow it. It was really great, but it would've probably done better in a smaller hall. - Hugh Masekala: South African jazz fusion concert. Again, I didn't know what to expect; this was a B1G1 deal that I bought tix to last-minute ($12 for TWO tickets??? How could I resist?!) & I really enjoyed it. - MYTHBUSTERS. This wasn't eligible for the 50% discount, but it was sooooooo worth it! It was basically just a Q&A with Jamie & Adam, but it was really cool to hear about the behind-the-scenes & everything. & then some. There's a lot of variety & they've really got something for everyone. Cal students, you MUST see something here at least once -- preferably your freshman year so you can discover how awesome it is & head back again & again! read more

I watched my first ballet from the mezzanine. Even though Zellerbach Hall isn't the nicest venue, Cal Performances fills it with a wide range of exciting performances. Tickets are pricey, but UC Berkeley students get really great discounts. Plus it is fun to do something different every once in a while. read more

Mark Morris Group, Yo-Yo Ma, Kronos Quartet, Stefan Jakiuw, Russian National Symphony, Joshua Bell, Cypress String Quartet, Hilary Hahn, Miami Ballet, Bolshevik Ballet, Krystian Zimmerman, etc.... need I say more. And the best thing is I usually get hooked up with comp tickets via the PR dept, so I could never say anything less than nice, but basically the types of performances brought on by CalPerf are top-notch, and Bay Area should be lucky to call itself CP's home. read more