More than 3,000 years after his reign, and 30 years after the original exhibition opened in San Francisco, Tutankhamun, ancient Egypt's celebrated "boy king," returns to the de Young Museum. The de Young presents Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, a glorious exhibition of over 130 outstanding works from the tomb of Tutankhamun, as well as those of his royal predecessors, his family, and court officials.

As an Official Hotel Sponsor of the King Tut Exhibit in San Francisco, The St. Regis San Francisco features many hotel packages offering VIP access to the exhibit. Use your tickets on any day, at any time, without waiting in line. Learn more.

Whether photographing politicians, artists, writers, fashion models, or movie stars, Richard Avedon revolutionized the genre of portraiture.  He rejected conventional stiff-and-staid poses and instead captured both motion and emotion in the faces of his subjects, often encapsulating their intrigue in a single charged moment. 

SFMOMA is proud to be the only U.S. venue for this retrospective that spans the artist's remarkable career.  Featuring more than 200 photographs along with a selection of vintage magazines, the exhibition presents work spanning Avedon's entire career, from his earliest street scenes to his breakthrough 1950s Paris fashion pictures and the iconic celebrity portraits that brought him world renown.  This in-depth retrospective reveals Avedon's singular ability to blur the lines between photojournalism, fashion photography, and fine art.  Learn more.

Maurice Sendak has written or illustrated more than 100 picture books over his 60-year career.  A number of those books, including Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Chicken Soup with Rice, inspired generations of children and changed the landscape of picture books.  Included in the exhibition are original watercolors, preliminary sketches, drawings, and dummy books from more than 40 of Sendak's books, all from the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, the repository for Sendak's artwork and working materials. 

This major retrospective sheds light on the many mysteries of his life and art by exploring the intensely personal undercurrents in his work; and it does so using Sendak's own words, insights, and remarkable stories.  Learn more.

This season we're celebrating the 100th anniversary of our gorgeous theater by filling our stage with great masters, unbridled passion, phenomenal acting, and big ideas.

Now in our 43rd season, A.C.T. remains passionately committed to bringing you the finest master artists in the field, to presenting great dramatic literature, and to creating work in the unique spirit of San Francisco.  We're kicking off with our biggest theatrical event of the season - a dazzling new interpretation of Noël Coward's Brief Encounter that combines the play, the film, and his songs in a radical multimedia experience unlike anything you've ever seen.  Loved by audiences and critics alike in sold-out runs in England last year, Brief Encounter pays honor to our theater's rich tradition as a movie house - Citizen Kane premiered here in 1941.  We're also bringing master artists David Mamet, Sweeney Todd's John Doyle, and Olympia Dukakis back to our stage.  Plus an electric Phèdre (first performed here 100 years ago with the legendary Sarah Bernhardt) debuts the talents of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, one of the most thrilling theater companies in the world, to the Bay Area.  Our world premiere event The Tosca Project bookends the season in a stunning tribute to our very own North Beach and includes dancers from the San Francisco Ballet.  Learn more.   

Cal Performances, the performing arts presenter and producer of the University of California, Berkeley, continues to delight with exceptional music, dance, and theater artists from around the world.

Some of the biggest stars of the music world will grace our stage, including Renée Fleming, Ian Bostridge, Pat Metheny, Joshua Bell, Youssou N'Dour, and Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.  Mark Morris's incomparable The Hard Nut returns to Zellerbach Hall during the holiday season.  London's Globe Theatre will entertain us in timeless fashion with its hit production of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, while the Merce Cunningham Dance Company will expand our artistic horizons with the premiere of a bold new work next spring.  Artists that we've come to know and embrace through Cal Performances will return, including Jordi Savall, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Laurie Anderson, Ira Glass, the Tallis Scholars, and the Takács Quartet.  And we will bring you the American premiere of a new opera, A House in Bali, by the gifted American composer Evan Ziporyn.  Learn more.

"Astonishing, dreamlike, brilliant in hue, Richard Mayhew's art evokes at once the Impressionist landscapes of Monet and the color field paintings of the Abstract Expressionist era.  Committed, along with the other prominent African American artists in the Spiral Group, to construct a visual response to the Civil Rights Movement, Mayhew continues to produce images that are not overtly political..."  - Bridget Cook, Guest Curator

The exhibition of Mayhew's work at MoAD will be the first part of a three-part chronological retrospective of the artist's career.  In this exhibition, Mayhew's paintings from the late 1950's through the 1970's, consisting primarily of landscape with some figurative works will be featured.  Learn more.

4th San Francisco International Animation Festival, Landmark's Embarcadero Center Cinema

The U.S. premiere of Cirque du Soleil's latest big top touring production, OVO, will be performed for a limited engagement under the trademark blue-and-yellow Grand Chapiteau at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

OVO (Portuguese for "egg") was created and directed by Brazilian dancer/choreograhper Deborah Colker -  the first woman to create a Cirque production.  The show relies heavily on Brazilian music and some dance performances mixed in with traditional circus arts.  OVO looks at the biodiversity and beauty of the insect world, one filled with noisy action and moments of quiet emotion.  When a mysterious egg appears in their midst, the insects are awestruck and intensely curious about this iconic object that represents the enigma and cycles of their lives.  Learn more.

The Bay Area's favorite holiday tradition returns to A.C.T. with a sparkling, music-infused A Christmas Carol.  Featuring mean ol' Scrooge, adorable Tiny Tim, those spooky Christmas ghosts, and a multigenerational cast of dozens, A Christmas Carol is a celebration of goodwill that you'll never forget. Bring your family, bring your friends, and check your "humbugs" at the door!  Learn more.