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This week, jazz pianist Joey Alexander is at Stanford Live, Stephen King’s “Misery” comes to Palo Alto Players and new music nonprofit Coast Live Music launches in Portola Valley with the Ehnes Quartet Plus, Dan Ashley and Jay Middleton play Club Fox, “How I Learned What I Learned” memoir about Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson at TheatreWorks and author Kyla Zhao in Los Altos.
Joey Alexander
Three-time Grammy Award-nominated jazz pianist and composer Joey Alexander’s latest album, “Continuance,” was released on Mack Avenue Records in November 2023 and this month he’ll be performing it live at Stanford. According to Stanford Live, Alexander is known for his “mind-blowing” technique and ability to communicate joy, and his music also takes inspiration from outside the jazz world. “Continuance” includes a version of “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” best known as a Bonnie Raitt song, and the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” in addition to original compositions.
Jan. 19, 7:30 p.m., Bing Concert Hall, 327 Lasuen St., Stanford. Tickets are $32. live.stanford.edu.
Ehnes Quartet
Coast Live Music, a new Peninsula-based nonprofit, launches its first season Jan. 20 with a performance by the Ehnes Quartet at the Portola Valley Town Center. The well-regarded string quartet will perform Haydn’s String Quartet in G major, Op. 76, No. 1 and Schumann’s String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41, No. 1. Audiences are invited to arrive before the concert and enjoy a glass of bubbly to toast the new music organization. Led by founder and artistic director Livia Sohn, Coast Live Music was “created with the idea of connecting the many wonderful things that exist within our community,” according to the organization’s website. To that end, the group is bringing live classical music to some striking Peninsula locations — its second show, slated for May, will feature baroque music at Thomas Fogarty Winery.
Jan. 20, 7 p.m. (bubbles at 6:15 p.m.) at Portola Valley Town Center, 765 Portola Road, Portola Valley. Tickets are $45. coastlivemusic.com.
‘How I Learned What I Learned’
Former TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Artistic Director Tim Bond returns to TheatreWorks to direct August Wilson’s “How I Learned What I Learned” (co-conceived by Todd Kreidler), a solo memoir show about the life of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wilson, starring Steven Anthony Jones. Bond, now the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, was also a close friend of Wilson’s and is an acclaimed interpreter of his works, according to a press release from TheatreWorks. “I am honored to celebrate the legacy of self-respect and self-actualization of the monumental Black artist who was one of the greatest American playwrights of the 20th Century,” Bond states in the release. This production was originally staged at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. TheatreWorks will bring the show on a weeklong tour of Bay Area communities following its run in downtown Mountain View.
Through Feb. 3, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. Check individual performance ticket prices online. theatreworks.org.
Kyla Zhao
Local writer Kyla Zhao (the author of “Fraud Squad”) will be at Linden Tree Books in downtown Los Altos to celebrate the launch of her new novel “Valley Verified,” about a young New York City fashion writer who moves cross country and leaps into the intense tech world of Silicon Valley when she accepts a job at a new startup. According to Linden Tree’s website, Zhao and store co-owner Flo Grosskurth will discuss “ambitious young women, the Zillennial experience, Silicon Valley startup culture and Patagonia vests” at the event. Zhao graduated from Stanford University in 2021 and has worked in tech marketing and journalism.
Jan. 20, 1 p.m., Linden Tree Books, 265 State St., Los Altos. lindentreebooks.com.
Dan Ashley and Jay Middleton
Plenty of famous faces have performed at Club Fox, but followers of Bay Area news might find the frontman for the Dan Ashley Band to be particularly familiar. That’s because Ashley, a journalist, has anchored the weeknight news for San Francisco’s ABC7 for over three decades. As a singer and guitarist, Ashley’s sound blends country, Americana and rock ‘n’ roll. His 2021 solo album, “Out There,” a collaboration with producer and writing partner Bill Bentley, draws on classic rock with a bluesy edge, with earthy vocals and gritty, rock-driven guitar. Ashley performs with singer-songwriter Jay Middleton, himself a familiar face to Bay Area audiences, having most recently fronted the local party band All Star Jukebox for the past two decades, with a long performing career before that. Though he’s penned songs for others that have charted, Middleton turned his songwriting skills inward during the early days of the pandemic, writing the songs that would become “Forward,” his first solo album. Released in 2022, “Forward” features an uplifting blend of wailing rock guitar, a full-bodied funk-influenced horn section, gentle vocal harmonies — even a light country twang.
Jan. 19, 8 p.m. at Club Fox, 2209 Broadway Redwood City. Tickets are $20-$25. eventbrite.com.
‘Misery’
When a snowy car crash badly injures successful novelist Paul Sheldon, he learns there’s something much more rigid and inescapable than deadlines: his “Number One Fan.” Sequestered in a remote cabin by said fan, Annie Wilkes, Paul finds his convalescence transformed quickly into captivity when Annie becomes displeased with his plans for her favorite character. Palo Alto Players gets the year off to a thrilling start with this stage adaptation of Stephen King’s novel “Misery” that hammers home some truths about the dark sides of fame and fandom. This tight, tense 90-minute show was adapted for the stage by William Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay for the 1990 film.
Through Feb.4 at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Tickets $35-$60. paplayers.org.