New at Pittsburg’s event this year will be a more direct tie to preventive health, with the direct involvement of the Contra Costa County Health Services’ Men’s Health & Wellness Program. “Communities of color are at the lower end of the health care spectrum, and men in particular aren’t good about being proactive about their health,” said Gregory Osorio of the Pittsburg-based Souljahs, who said better health outreach is one key to the nonprofit’s mission of social service and social justice.

For California (centered around Los Angeles County and running north along the coast up to Monterey and San Benito counties), State song: “Another Day of Sun,” as performed on an LA freeway in the opening scene of “La La Land”, State ballet slippers how to draw mineral: gold, as in the 24-karat kind used in the Oscars at the Academy Awards, State tree: the Lone Pine on Seventeen Mile Drive, State marine mammal: surfeur-dudeis californius, For Northern California (the Bay Area and everything up to the Oregon border, including Sacramento)..

Kinsella forms new Norcal Musical Theater. BRENTWOOD — Director Steve Kinsella, with 26 years writing, producing and directing theater, had formed a new theater company in East County, Broadway Repertory Theater. As a contract director, Kinsella has directed, performed or consulted for most major theater companies in the Bay Area. He also helms the Brentwood Teen Theater and The Kinsella Theater Group. Six years ago he was approached to cofound the Brentwood Theater Company, which he did, serving as its artistic director until April of this year.

The cast’s three women are excellent (although, at times, Jordan Kersten is too shrill to enjoy), Playing five different roles from prostitute to the dying man who haunts Yossarian, Brittney Magnano is a little spitfire who impressively speaks Italian with panache, Vanessa Alvarez’s Luciana is the most fleshed-out of her seven roles, and she makes the most of that character’s short time onstage, John Stephen ballet slippers how to draw King as the compassionate chaplain and psychiatrist delivers in both roles, and Robert Sean Campbell is exhilarating as the devious Milo Minderbender, the mess officer who finds a way to turn a profit off of everything from figs to chocolate-covered cotton, Danny Martin and Peter Ray Juarez also excel in several smaller supporting roles..

If Nielsen and Connesson weren’t enough to demonstrate Deneve’s podium skills, the music from Prokofiev’s “Cinderella,” in the conductor’s own arrangement, sufficed. In the introduction and 10 episodes drawn from the ballet score, Deneve highlighted this enduring work’s wit, charm and drama in equal measure. From the bickering of the wicked stepsisters in the “Shawl Dance” to the lush sonorities of the “Grand Waltz” — and the final midnight episode, with the orchestral tolling like a nightmarish clock — the results were indelible.