Louise Pearl’s one-woman show “Pass the Nails and Shame The Devil” will be playing on Saturdays from March 7 to April 18 at The Marsh. Credit: David Allen

Never miss local events! Sign up for Berkeleyside’s arts and culture newsletter, The Scene. And check out our roundup of affordable things to do anytime in Berkeley.

🎭 Louise Pearl’s one-woman show “Pass the Nails and Shame The Devil” recounts the experience of her family’s ordeal building their own house amid Oakland’s 1980s crack epidemic as her strong-willed, Louisiana-born mother and gather a motley crew of men to make this dream home into a reality. Saturdays, March 7-April 18, 5 p.m. The Marsh. $25-$100

🖼️ Are your walls looking bare? A poster sale will be held at the UC Berkeley campus, although all are welcome to peruse and buy posters. Sale is held every day through Saturday, March 7, 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Upper Sproul Plaza at Telegraph Ave. and Bancroft Ave. FREE admission

👩‍🎨 ACCI Gallery presents “Art in the Fold,” an exhibition displaying the world of folded artistry — from fabric pleating to the fold-forming of metal, paper origami, two-dimensional representations of the fold, and more. A talk will be held with the curator and artists of the exhibition on Saturday, March 7th at 2 p.m. Tickets to the artist talk are FREE; RSVP required. The exhibition runs through Sunday, March 22, and gallery admission is FREE.

🥋 Author Jeff Chang will speak about his latest book, “Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America,” a biography on Lee that Chang created by going through thousands of personal documents (including letters and rare photos) and exclusive, in-depth interviews with Lee’s inner circle (including his first love and early fighting mentors). (Read more about the book.) Thursday, March 5, 5:30 p.m. North Gate Hall and Jarvis Auditorium. $10 

📚 Prolific author Rebecca Solnit discusses her new book “The Beginning Comes After the End,” which surveys a world that has changed dramatically since the year 1960. She’s joined in conversation by Annie Leonard, former director of Greenpeace US. Friday, March 6, 7 p.m. St. John’s Presbyterian Church. $24 (book included)

🌳 Help plant trees in Berkeley with the guidance of city staff to lead the work, demonstrate planting techniques, share safety tips and answer questions as you go. At San Pablo Park, help plant a row of new trees to rebuild canopy and add future shade near active areas, and stay afterwards for lunch and a short tour of trees already growing in the park. In South Berkeley, help plant a dense pocket forest using native saplings in a small urban space. Saturday, March 7 — 9:15 a.m.-1 p.m. at San Pablo Park and 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. at the corner of Adeline St. and MLK Jr. Way. FREE (RSVP for San Pablo and South Berkeley)

🎷 Berkeley High Jazz presents the 15th annual JazzGirls+ Day, an afternoon for 10-to-14-year-old girls, female-identifying or non-binary musicians interested in meeting and playing with professional female jazz musicians. Participants have the opportunity to win full or partial scholarships to Bay Area music camps, including The JazzSchool, Cazadero Music Camp, Oaktown Jazz, Stanford Jazz Workshop, Lafayette Summer Music Workshop and Jam Camp West. Saturday, March 7, 1-4:30 p.m. Berkeley High School. FREE

🎻 The Berkeley Old Time Music Convention celebrates Women’s History Month with women-led jams, workshops and a concert by the Stairwell Sisters. Saturday, March 7, 1-5 p.m. Central Library. FREE

🏮 Imasala Collective will be hosting a Lantern Festival Popup, featuring food, pastries, jewelry and more from local Asian vendors. Sunday, March 8, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. 1714 San Pablo Ave. FREE

🎨 Children aged 7 and up can explore their inner Picasso at a watercolor workshop. Granulating watercolors, which are formulated with pigments that separate into different colors and textures when mixed with water, will be used. No art experience is required. Sunday, March 8, 1 p.m. FREE with gallery admission

🌿 Spiral Gardens, a community-led farm in South Berkeley, will be hosting a casual planning session to brainstorm what to grow at the farm this spring. Veteran community farmers and first-time attendees are all welcome to participate in the planning session, complete other tasks like pruning and weeding and/or just come to relax in nature. Sunday, March 8, 1-5 p.m. 2850 Sacramento St. FREE

🎸 Berkeley songwriter and filmmaker Alexis Harte performs with his band The Lemmonhammer on a triple bill with Berkeley singer/songwriter Tamsen Flynn (of Morell’s Bread fame) and her Handsome Band with an opening set by Molly with Charles. Sunday, March 8, 3 p.m. The Ivy Room. $14.73

🎷 Mandala is a top-notch East Bay quartet dedicated to music by pianist Keith Jarrett’s two great 1970s quartets (the “American” and “European” bands) featuring pianist Matt Clark, drummer Bryan Bowman, bassist Michael Wilcox and saxophonist Sheldon Brown. Sunday, March 8, 3 p.m. The Back Room. $20

🎶♀️ The Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, the Jazzschool’s resident composers’ big band, celebrates Women’s History Month on with a concert of music devoted to works by Bay Area women jazz composers with special guests saxophonist Jean Fineberg, pianist Anne Sajdera, and vocalists Andrea Claburn and Jamie Zee. The program includes their original compositions as well as tunes by local luminaries Myra Melford, Ayn Inserto, Jeanne Geiger, the ESO’s resident poet, Avotcja, and Betty Reid Soskin. Sunday, March 8, 5:30 p.m. The Jazzschool. $20

🎭 Berkeley Rep presents the fourth annual High School Theatre Festival, featuring original theatrical works from Campolindo High School, Hayward High School, Oakland School for the Arts, and Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts. This year’s theme is “There is Some Place Called Home.” Monday, March 9, 7:30 p.m. FREE (RSVP required)

📚 Michael Pollan discusses his latest venture into the mysteries of human brain “A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness” in conversation with journalist and podcaster Maya Shankar. (Read more about the book.) Tuesday, March 10, 7 p.m. First Congregational Church of Berkeley. $37 (signed book included)

🌽 The Berkeley Food Institute and Graduate School of Journalism present a panel discussion about ultra-processed foods and the future of healthy food systems while considering the impact of California’s first-in-the-nation legislation aimed at defining and removing harmful foods from school meals. Wednesday, March 11, 5 p.m. Brower Center. FREE (registration required)

🌊 The Berkeley Center for New Media is hosting “Native Seas,” a week-long series that will bring several Pacific Islander and Indigenous navigators from the Northern Mariana Islands to the Bay Area. They will hold one lecture at UC Berkeley to present their ancient knowledge systems and cosmology, share firsthand accounts of seafaring voyages and discuss their collective efforts to preserve their cultural heritage. Wednesday, March 11, 5 p.m. Jarvis Auditorium at the Grimes Engineering Center. FREE (RSVP required)

🗓️ See more things to do in Oakland and Richmond. And check out our big list of affordable things to do anytime in Berkeley. Sign up for our weekly arts and culture newsletter, The Scene.

If there’s an event you’d like us to consider for this roundup, email us at the-scene@berkeleyside.org. The deadline to submit events for Around Berkeley is end-of-day Monday. If there’s an event that you’d like to promote on our calendar, you can use the self-submission form on our events page.

Your gift fuels our journalism.

Everyone deserves to have someone looking out for them, including you. That’s why we made it our job. When you give to Berkeleyside, you’re defending facts, funding truth-seekers and keeping Berkeley informed.

Help us keep our news free with a donation today.

“*” indicates required fields