We Can Kick the Pope Around Next Year, Maybe

We squeaked through another year. Somehow we managed not to contract drug-resistant TB, die from overhydration trying to "Hold Your Wee for a Wii," or succumb to lead poisoning after sucking on all those delicious Chinese toys. Such fine health left us ample time — 8 hours and 14 minutes per day, according to the most recent Nielsen Media Research — to watch TV and stay abreast of worldly affairs. (Speaking of breasts, did you hear that the Australian Navy pays for enhancement surgery for its female sailors?) Rife with absurdity and calamity, last year's headlines are worthy of the finest dramaturge, and Sheherezade VIII 2007: A Year in Review aims to prove it. The annual ten-minute-play festival draws on current events, but avoids the one-note pitfalls of sketch comedy. Of dozens of playlets, some funny and others quite serious, submitted to the Playwrights' Center of San Francisco, only nine were chosen this year. During Sheherezade VIII, Barry Bonds will get his moment onstage, as will aging members of the Police, evangelical preacher Ted Haggard, and NASA astronaut-turned-bunny-boiler Lisa Marie Nowak. How the Vatican's 36-page Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road escaped lampoon, we'll never know, but be warned, cars can be "an occasion of sin."
Feb. 7-9, 8 p.m., 2008