Stepping inside the studio of Steve Coleman, the longtime resident set designer for the Throckmorton Theatre, is like entering an overflowing cornucopia of endless great ideas brought to life in the form of marionettes, set pieces, sculptures, paintings, books, puppets, cabinets and so much more – a visual history of the venue that completely envelops you.

The Mill Valley native’s creative workspace is even more abuzz than usual right now as he prepares for another show. But instead of readying the set pieces for a production of the Throckmorton Theatre or the Curtain Theatre, Coleman is the honored artist at the 61st Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival, set for Sept. 16-17 in the redwood grove of Old Mill Park.

Coleman, a 2002 Milley Award winner and the cofounder of the Curtain Theatre in 2000, says he’s excited to be part of the festival again, but he’s also a bit anxious about exhibiting a retrospective of his set designs, art that is far more complex and unwieldy than traditional fair fare like paintings and photographs.

“A lot of them are quite large,” he says. “Many of them connect with the theater in some way, and there are a number of special props that show off the different sizes and scale. And there is one in particular that will make many of them seem very small!”
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As he readies himself for MVFAF, we sat down with Coleman to chat about his life in the theater, his influences and inspirations and his feverish preparation for the festival.

Enjoy Mill Valley: What were your influences when you first got into set design?
Steve Coleman: I’m still puzzled at how I got into this whole world of set design (laughs). I used to do these little miniatures like maquettes and architectural models. I took drama classes at College of Marin, and then I went to acting school in San Francisco so that I could learn both sides of the production. My biggest influence, though, was a teacher I had in San Francisco named Wendell Phillips, who had been with the Group Theatre in New York City and was just this grand old man of the theater. He just knew everything.

EMV: So you started with miniatures when you were a kid?
SC: Yes, I built little theaters, which is very funny to think about.

EMV: Were your parents an influence in terms of learning getting into designing and building things?
SC: My mom was an art major at college but she never did much with it. My dad used to draw with us as kids and help us make characters and that sort of things. He was a strong influence in that way.

EMV: What was the medium as a kid?
SC: Clay, mostly.

EMV: Now I would imagine it’s a little bit of everything.
SC: Pretty much!

EMV: What’s your process of creating a set design when you tackle a new project here at the Throckmorton?
SC: Besides reading the play and familiarizing myself with the text, I just sort of plumb the depths of the director and try to find their vision and what they want. Then you just take off and do the research and imagine it as if you were in the production. The director dictates the style and whether or not they are reimagining the play in a certain way. That directorial vision is the most important thing. Then I dive in from there.

EMV: Did you have a sense of what you wanted to do for this special exhibition at the Fall Arts Festival?
SC: I haven’t done the festival for years. I have shown there before but because I’m always so busy here, I just sort’ve stopped applying. So I’m excited. This will be sort of a retrospective of stuff that I’ve created. Some of the work are the scenes I’ve made for the library cases in Mill Valley and Larkspur over the years. I have these little characters that I’ve created scenes for and they’re used to tell a story.

EMV: Tell me about the poem that inspired you for this exhibit? Williams Butler Yeats’ “Sailing to Byzantium”?
SC: Yes. It’s not so much the whole poem itself, just the name and what its says. When I was thinking of some of the pieces I worked on, it was fun to think of a vision of another world. It was more about thinking of a place that we could go to if we could imagine ourselves there. This work is perhaps the logical extension of the imaginary worlds we created as children growing up in the hills and canyons overlooking Old Mill Creek. In our imagination, the little twig boats we placed in the unchartered waters of Old Mill Creek might somehow reach the far pavilions of distant cities yet undreamt of. We are all dreamers of a better world with visions of the world that might be or might have been.

EMV: Tell me about the “artisan’s grove” where you’ll be showing your work. It’s near the Children’s Grove?
SC: Yes, it’s a separate grove nearby, closer to the creek. It’s a part of the park where there used to be a footbridge to Molino. I wasn’t really conscious of this little particular grove but there are a number of stumps from ancient trees that are there. And they are just fascinating. The burls and the faces in them. All of the spirits of the woods are there.

The 411: Mill Valley native and Throckmorton Theatre and Curtain Theatre set designer Steve Coleman is exhibiting a retrospective of his work at the 61st Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival, set for Sept. 16-17 in the redwood grove of Old Mill Park. The exhibit space is sponsored by ​Good Earth Natural Foods. Here's a look inside Coleman's workshop upstairs at the Throckmorton Theatre:

For Emily Turner and Matt Boschetto, the past two years have been filled with chance encounters, joyous, life-changing events and leaps of faith. Oh, and hormones. And an Uber. And a beautiful baby girl.

That roller-coaster ride has resulted in Matildas Magnolias, the couple’s innovative attempt to stir up the floral business, on which Americans spend more than $26 billion dollars a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The business is built around the Bloombox​, a $39 box of fresh cut flowers from local farmers delivered to homes and businesses.

“Flowers in the U.S. are phenomenally expensive, and when you understand the farming part behind it, there’s really no justification for that,” Turner says. “We felt that there was a way to  bring the beauty of fresh flower to people’s homes but do it in an affordable way – that’s the Bloombox.”

It all started with that Uber, and a broken phone. Boschetto’s mother, who lives in the Bay Area, was in New York City and had read an article in Harper’s Bazaar about a new Nexxus salon opening in the city, and made an appointment there. Turner, who grew up in Yorkshire, England and had moved to New York to work for Unilever, managing the rebranding of the hair care products business and the salon launch, was there when she arrived. As Boschetto looked to leave in an Uber after her appointment, she realized her phone had died. Turner happily jumped in and called her an Uber, not thinking much of it.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” Boschetto said at the time.

“I don’t think that she expected that six months later that we’d announced that we were pregnant,” Turner says, wryly. “It was unbelievable.”

Yes, Boschetto introduced Turner to her son Matt the next time they saw one another, and things moved, well, quickly. The couple moved to London and Turner gave birth to their daughter – you guessed it, Matilda – in June 2016.

And it was at that exact time that they formulated the idea for Matilda’s Magnolias.

“This is my rationale as a woman: when you go through the hormones of having a baby, your mind and body are empowered to be able to do anything,” Turner says. “That’s why I think we chose that moment to reassess our lives. We both had good incomes and could sustain a nice life, but we weren’t really doing anything that we really wanted to do.”

Flowers didn’t exactly come out of left field. Matt Boschetto’s roots in the flower farming business run deep, as Matt’s great-great grandfather Giuseppe Boschetto started Boschetto & Podesta Farms, a flower farm in San Leandro, when he moved to the U.S. from Genoa in 1912. Matt’s grandfather Angelo Boschetto worked at the flower farm when he was a young boy and later founded Able Services, a facilities operations firm that manages more than one billion square feet of real estate and where Matt worked many years later, right up until he met Turner.

The couple moved to the Bay Area after Matilda was born as they planned to launch the business here. “As an Italian-American family with our roots born in the flower industry, we’re excited as the fourth generation to be building a business back where our family started more than 100 years ago.”

That doesn’t mean that raising a baby and birthing a new business simultaneously went off without a hitch. “When you have a baby, all of those hormones take over,” Turner adds. “I was feeling so unbelievably inspired – and then all of that’s gone away and I’ve got a baby and I’m not sleeping and what are we doing?”

​Bloombox
So what makes Matilda’s Magnolias innovative?

While Matilda’s Magnolias leverages its relationship with local flower farms, chooses the flowers and designs each bloom box to contain flowers with different textures and tones, it does not do the arranging (though it does provide arrangement “tips.”).
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“Design and curation is still very much a part of what we do – but the arrangement is not,” Turner says, adding that customers can arrange for a single delivery or set up recurring deliveries. "That's where the savings comes in."

Soon after the launch in April, Matilda’s developed great traction in Mill Valley, as Boschetto’s aunt and local resident Courtney Rudnick helped them a great deal with spreading the word. Those early customers have been vital to Matilda’s success, Turner says.

“When you’re building your own business, the first people you get who are advocates of yours – they become like family,” she says. “You really care about maintaining and prioritizing those relationships, our first advocates came from Mill Valley.”

Turner says the business “is tracking way above our forecasts.” The couple put all of their own money into the startup, taking outside venture capital investments.  “We wanted to prove the principle of our idea,” she says.

Now they’re hiring delivery drivers and are almost ready to launch the Flowerbar, a 1961 Ford Econoline truck that’s been turned into a “food truck with flowers. We’re excited to take it around Mill Valley and San Francisco,” she says. “People will be able to pick their own blooms from the truck and create their own Bloombox.”

Taking a step back from the insane pace of the past two years, Turner says the whirlwind has all been worth it.
“We took a hit to invest in our future by doing something that we were truly inspired to do,” says says. “And now we’re just over the moon.”

The 411: MORE INFO on Matildas Magnolias.

Mill Valley Music​ owner Gary Scheuenstuhl's band the Marinfidels has turned a great idea into a series of them, performing class rock 'n' roll albums in their entirety at the Throckmorton Theatre. After doing two Rolling Stones' albums and the Band’s The Last Waltz, Scheuenstuhl was inspired to do the Who's classic Who's Next, which the Marinfidels will perform at the Throckmorton on Saturday, Sept. 16.

Who’s Next was the band's fifth studio album and includes the songs "Won't Get Fooled Again," "Behind Blue Eyes," and "Baba O'Riley." In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked the album 28th on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, while the album appeared at number 15 on Pitchfork Media's list of the 100 best records from the 1970s.

The Marinfidels include Andy Kopp (vocals), Gary Scheuenstuhl (drums), Brett Boyd (guitar), Richard Gee (guitar), John Olmstead (keyboards), and Kevin Corrigan (bass). Also featuring special guest Jesse Lee Kincaid (violin).

The 411: The Marinfidels perform the Who's Who's Next in its entirety at the Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Ave., on Saturday, Sept. 16. 8pm. ​MORE INFO & TIX.

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Hundreds have turned out for Movies in the Park screening of the classic The Princess Bride and Pixar's Academy Award-winning Inside Out so far this year. Now it's time for one of the biggest blockbuster of 2017: Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast.

The free outdoor film series, a collaboration between the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce, Mill Valley Recreation and the California Film Institute, screens Beauty and the Beast on Friday, Sept. 8. The film, which has grossed more than $500 million since its release in March, tells the tale of Belle, a young woman from a small village, and the Beast, a young prince trapped under the spell of an enchantress. 

The free film screenings are set in the redwood grove adjacent to the playground in Old Mill Park. Seating is general admission, and attendees are encouraged to bring a blanket and/or low beach chair. The film begins at around 15 minutes after sunset, approximately 7:45pm on Sept. 8.

Don't miss this chance to see amazing films in the beautiful Old Mill Park – FOR FREE! Old Mill Park is at the corner of Throckmorton Avenue and Cascade Drive.

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Jane Watson had an age-old problem that she couldn’t get out of her head.

Her young sons were getting older, spending more time at school and activities, and she longed for the next phase of what had already been a long, creative career.

“I’ve had ideas before that I couldn’t get out of my head, and for whatever reason, I didn’t see them through,” Watson says. “But I felt so passionate about this one – about the need for it and my desire to make it happen – that I just wouldn’t let it go.”

“This one” is The Makery, a new creative hub she’s opened in town, a “community handcrafting space” where people can gather around a community worktable and learn an array of creative pursuits, from sewing and floral arrangement to weaving, painting and calligraphy. They do so in small group classes, using high-quality materials and taught by local artists in a gorgeous, brick-laden spaces on the Sunnyside Ave. side of El Paseo Lane, which also includes El Paseo restaurant, Alexander’s Artisan Rugs and Bossa Nova Clothing.

​With a career that has included stints at Design Within Reach and Restoration Hardware, the Makery isn’t much of a departure for Watson, as she’s been into “crafts and tinkering” since she was little, and has always been “that serial class taker” whose roommates would poke fun at her for being the person that “would always sign up for that random pottery class.”

“Anytime a class passed by my eyes, I’d say, ‘That sounds fun’ and sign up,” she says. “Whether it was the skills or the community element, I just gravitated to it. I never said no to a class. But it was in those classes where met some of the coolest women, made some great friends and learned a ton."

Watson chuckles as she rattles off some of the classes she’s taken over the years. “I guess it’s not all for naught,” she says with a laugh.

Born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia, Watson grew up with a “Dad who tinkered in the wood shop and an artistic and creative Mom." She attended the University of Virginia, did a “ski bum” stint year in Idaho after college and moved back to the Washington, D.C. area. An English major, Watson got “swept up into the world of project management” at a variety of young startups that blossomed during the first dot-com boom, helping firms develop their corporate websites and internal systems.

​After a few years, Watson was ready for a change of scenery and, with her ties to the tech world established, moved to the Bay Area. “I hopped in a car with my sister and we drove cross-country,” she says.

Watson quickly got a job at a consulting firm that worked with companies like Design Within Reach, ultimately landing a gig with the modern furniture, lighting and home accessories business. After a few years there, Watson needed to scratch her creative itch, and she enrolled at a textile design school in Berkeley at night and on weekends, eventually leaving Design Within Reach to start her own business centering on her handpainted decorative pillows.

“It was a lot of work, and it became a very expensive hobby,” she says with a laugh.  

Watson returned to consulting, this time for Restoration Hardware in Corte Madera. By that time, around 2005, Watson and her husband Tim had moved to Mill Valley, and she eventually became full time at Restoration Hardware.

In 2009, when Watson gave birth to the first of two sons, she left the working world. Over the course of the seven years she’s raised her sons, Watson continued to take classes, almost always finding inspiration in them and longing for the next one. The idea for the Makery got stuck in Watson’s head when she realized, for the umpteenth time, that she had to go to the East Bay for a class, this time one on making a wreath in advance of the holiday season. “I don’t know if I wasn’t searching hard enough or what, but I couldn’t find one closer to home,” she says. “That was the ‘light bulb moment. And then it never went away from there.”

Fast forward to July 2016, and Watson called her husband, an entrepreneur who has created two start-ups, with the nervous excitement and a pitch for the Makery. “He’s the numbers guy, and he was supportive of the idea from the first minute,” she says.

The next several months were a tutorial of sorts for Watson as she toured Mill Valley and Marin, looking for spaces for lease and wrapping her head around the Makery’s business model. She briefly considered opening as a pop-up to get a sense of the appetite for the creative hub she envisioned.

“But I felt so strongly that I wanted a space where you walk in and immediately you just feel like you’re in a lovely, inspiring space,” she says. “That had to be a part of this experience. The physical space is a critical piece, and I wanted to be in control of the environment.”

She also decided that “if I’m going to do this right, it needs to be in Mill Valley,” she says. The search was a slog, but in March, she found her space at 2 El Paseo Lane, as Kelly Scott was relocating her popular housewares and accessories retail shop The Goods to 2 Miller Avenue, the former home of Mt. Tam Dog Co. adjacent to Equator Coffees. Watson worked on building out the space, and had a soft opening around the Memorial Day Parade. She eased into creating the class schedule, and has readied a full roster of classes starting in September.

The Makery also has a retail component, as Watson sells lines of DIY-centric, artisan branded "Take and Make” kits for projects like book-binding, designed by the artists themselves – “things you would find on Etsy,” she says. Watson plans to add other retail items as she identifies those that are perfect fits.
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“I want this space to be community oriented,” says Watson, noting that she plans to have free monthly open house events where attendees “can come and have tea and just bring something they’re working on. This is a space for everyone. It’s warm and inviting for everyone from talented artists to people who are just like me and looking to learn something new.”

The 411: The Makery is located at 2 El Paseo Lane at Sunnyside Avenue. MORE INFO & CLASS SCHEDULES.

​Mill Valley native Dr. Kimberly Henry has been practicing plastic surgery for more than three decades, and there's no indication that her enthusiasm for her life's work is waning anytime soon.

"I just genuinely love taking care of people," she says.

Proof of that continued vigor comes with the news that Henry opened a new location for her practice this month, in San Francisco at 450 Sutter St., Suite 1340. Henry first opened her practice in Greenbrae in 1992, followed by locations in Davis and Petaluma. "This is really a very exciting time for the practice," says Henry, noting that the new office is designed to cater to national and international patients. "The world is getting smaller, and we're able to do virtual consultations for the time constrained and the out of town patients." 

Henry earned a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Southern California and her Medical Doctorate from UC Davis School of Medicine. She completed her general surgery training at the Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital and her plastic surgery training at the Rush Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago, followed by a fellowship in aesthetic and breast surgery at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Portland. 

Henry initially focused on general surgery after school before honing in on cranial facial surgery, primarily for those born with birth defects. Trained in a variety of applications, Henry now primarily focuses on cosmetic surgery, such as breast augmentations and reductions, face-lifts, liposuction, hair transplants, laser surgery, nose surgery and eyelid surgery, among others.

With four locations, Henry says she enjoys the distinctions among her four spaces and the patients of each. "I’ve always enjoyed the different dynamic of each office and the different diversity of each office," says Henry, a member of the American Medical Association, American Board of Plastic Surgery and the California Plastic Surgery Society.

Henry says she continues to love throwing her "supper club" events, in which she gathers a group of protective patients for a meal and a presentation, allowing would-be patients the opportunity to engage with her practice and "learn about the most recent techniques and procedures in a relaxed, festive setting."

The 411: Dr. Kimberly Henry​ has four plastic surgery locations in the Nay Area, most recently in San Francisco at 450 Sutter St., Suite 1340. MORE INFO. 

Longtime San Rafael artist ​Kay Russell has had two particular muses of late for her watercolor paintings: Sand Pond, a favorite family destination in the Western Sierras, and the Dogwood tree, "always changing in the backyard – reverent, whimsical, and often melancholy," she says.

"My paintings are a composite of recollections and an evolution of the familiar," Russell adds. "The paintings have grown from landscape representation toward the portrayal of spirit and atmosphere of place. I sometimes add rain to the images, trying to convey the meditative poetry of the moment and the essence of atmosphere. In those paintings, it is intentionally unclear whether you are in the rain, looking out at the rain, or remembering it. The landscapes turned in to familiar objects."

Russell, who teaches watercolor painting at City College of San Francisco, is showcasing her work under the banner of "Recollections: Sand Pond Series & Dogwood Series" at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center (85 Throckmorton Ave.), throughout September, with a wine reception set for the Mill Valley Arts Commission’s First Tuesday Artwalk on Sept. 12, 5:30-7:30pm. 

Russell has recently started her paintings by printing abstract, textural backgrounds on plexiglass before adding the images.

"Often I make the background by doing several layers of watercolor monotype color and texture before starting the painting," says Russell, who previously helped curate the art at San Francisco International Airport. "I find that this 'jump starts' the work, throwing me into a moving process. I use gouache, gum arabic, various masks, and paint removal techniques that allow me to move freely through the work, changing my mind, and incorporating my mistakes. This activity emphasizes and facilitates the element of mystery and spirit. It is exciting, unpredictable and very much about the moment, each action and decision leading to the next."

The 411: Kay Russell showcases her work under the banner of "Recollections" at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center (85 Throckmorton Ave.), throughout September, with a wine reception set for the Mill Valley Arts Commission’s First Tuesday Artwalk on Sept. 12, 5:30-7:30pm.

Learning that you've been accepted to exhibit in the prestigious Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival is incredible news for any artist.

But for local resident Sharon Axelrod, "incredible" doesn't quite do justice to her emotion at the moment she found out that she'd be showcasing her watercolor illustrations and photographs at the 2017 edition of the iconic event, set for Sept. 16-17 in Old Mill Park.

"It really was a life-saving moment," says the 34-year-old Axelrod.

She was at Stanford Medical Center, seeing her neurologist amidst a mind-numbingly complex, years-long medical struggle, first to find a diagnosis for the condition that had changed life as she knew it, and then to understand how to treat that condition and manage its debilitating symptoms. 

“Those neurology visits feel very futile sometimes," she says. "And I got the (MVFAF) call right after. I've gone to this event every year since I was a kid. I LOVE Mill Valley. I had wanted to apply and do the festival because it has been a very literal life-dream-bucket-list-item for me since I was a little kid. I am so very honored and excited to be showing at the 2017 Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival. It is another dream come true."

One could argue that Axelrod was more than deserving of a dream come true, as the past two years have been quite the opposite. She was diagnosed with Autonomic Neuropathy, essentially a failure of the Autonomic Nervous System to function properly. The nervous systems that control heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature and digestion, among others, "have failed to function correctly in me," she wrote in a post on a GoFundMe page​ created by friends in in October 2015, a campaign that has raised nearly $25,000 to assist with Axelrod's medical care.

In an odd twist, Axelrod's condition incited her to apply to participate in MVFAF for the first time. She'd been a longtime, widely revered art director at Kumara School in Tam Valley, and though she's been artist in a variety of mediums for years, she always thought she'd apply to the festival when her teaching career was in the rearview mirror. That occurrence came much sooner than expected, however, and she decided to make the leap.

Axelrod calls her paintings watercolor illustrations, as they incorporate both watercolor painting and ink drawing. Her photos primarily focus on nature around Marin County, often from a macro perspective, that she'd taken on her once regular hikes.

"I’m jumping in the water here with my eyes closed," says Axelrod, who moved Mill Valley nearly 10 years ago and whose grandparents lived here for 35 years. "I'm very nervous and excited."

The 411: Sharon Axelrod is showcasing her watercolor illustrations and photographs at the Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival, set for Sept. 16-17 in Old Mill Park. Follow her on Instagram @sharonaxlerod. MORE INFO.

When Bzur and Page Haun bought the franchise for Beeline Bikes in Marin, Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Contra Costa, and Alameda counties earlier this year, they didn't have to spend a lot of time brainstorming about the focus of their launch event.

With three kids at Park School, their own careers in technology and a longstanding passion for the arts – Haun majored in both musical arts/piano and organizational development at Vanderbilt University and serves as the pianist for music shows at Park – a benefit for Kiddo! was a no-brainer.

​"Kiddo supports music, the arts, technology and physical education – those are things that are happening in and around our house every single day," Bzur Haun says. 

To that end, the Hauns are hosting their Beeline Bikes' launch event as a Kiddo! benefit at the Mill Valley Middle School basketball courts at 425 Sycamore Ave. on Sunday, August 27 (1-3pm), featuring "yummy treats, bike swag, safety checks and meet a whole new peloton of friends." 

The event will also feature a Q&A with a pair of acclaimed local cyclists, former Tour de France racer Ted King and Alison Tetrick, who recently won the women's race in the Gravel Worlds. Beeline Bikes will be performing safety checks on kids' bikes at the event, and is donating 5 percent of all of its sales to Kiddo between now and Sept. 30. Schedule online at by going here and using promo code "Kiddo" when confirming an appointment. 

"I love the fact that our passion for cycling can positively impact our schools," Haun says.

San Carlos-based Beeline Bikes is a van-based, mobile bicycle repair service provider founded in 2013 by Peter Buhl, who has served on the boards of companies like PayPal. A longtime cyclist and the CEO of Visage Mobile, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider on the mobility space, Bzur Haun was drawn to the idea of "providing mobile bicycle repair services that go to where the demand is," a twist on the traditional bike shop model. 

For instance, Haun will have a Beeline van – a "shop on wheels" stocked with the tools and parts to perform a wide range of repair services – at the Marin County Bicycle Coalitions's Dirt Fondo ride this Sunday, and Haun plans to regularly have vans parked at key locations like the roundabout on the Mill Valley-Sausalito Multi-Use Path.

"The ability to go to where the cycling audience is key," he says. 

The 411: ​Beeline Bikes' launch event, a benefit for Kiddo!, is at the Mill Valley Middle School basketball courts at 425 Sycamore Ave. on Sunday, August 27 (1-3pm).

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Happy Feet Dance School founder Cece Bechelli recently completed a master's degree in Humanities at San Francisco University, a move driven in part by her desire to more deeply connect her organization to the history of dance, particularly the roots of rhythmic tap dance, Happy Feet's specialty.

Now, on the cusp of Happy Feet's 40th birthday – the longtime Mill Valley resident has been teaching kids and adults to dance since 1978 – Cece Bechelli and her family are an integral part of local dance history.

Happy Feet kicks off its 40th year with a wide array of tap, jazz, and ballet classes for beginners and continuing students ages three through adult on Sept. 11, a season that will culminate with a 40th anniversary celebration on Sunday, June 3rd at the Marin Center. 

"We are so blessed to have had the opportunity to teach so many wonderful students in this community," Bechelli says. "It's especially rewarding to have so many children start with us as little toddlers and stay with us all the way until high school graduation. Not only do our students develop into well-trained beautiful dancers, but we get to know our students as confident young adults by the time they leave for college. We are so lucky!" 

Bechelli opened Happy Feet in 1978 in the building that contains Marin Theatre Company on Miller Avenue, and then moved one year later to a 2,600-square-foot, bowling alley-shaped former auto repair garage on Montford Avenue right off of Miller. They’ve been there ever since.

Happy Feet has long been a family affair. Bechelli's three children, Matt, Caitlin, and Kelsey "basically grew up at Happy Feet," she says, all teaching dance in high school and college. And Caitlin Bechelli, who started dancing at the age of two at Happy Feet, taught there during high school and graduated from UCLA in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in World Arts and Cultures/ Dance, is the school's co-director. 

"Having Caitlin as my co-director is a huge blessing," Cece Bechelli says. "She brings a young, vibrant energy to Happy Feet and is a joy to work with everyday."

Sheri Bechelli, Cece's sister-in-law and friend from their childhood dance school in San Francisco, is one of Happy Feet's long-time instructors, while her daughter, Brea, grew up dancing at Happy Feet, taught dance during high school and is now headed to the University of Oregon, where she will major in dance.

During her course of study at SF State, Cece Bechelli researched and wrote about tap's history, including its African and Irish roots. "I was lucky enough to study with many of the late great tap masters such as Charles "Honi" Coles, Fayard Nicholas of the famed Nicholas Brothers and Gregory Hines," she says. "Their stories were fascinating and my interest in tap's history grew as I learned from each of these incredible dancers. Tap is an American indigenous dance form and its story runs directly parallel to American history."

Bechelli developed a lecture film series on tap's history and her master's thesis is titled, Women of the Tap Renaissance. "It's fun to be able to share tap's incredible history with our students at Happy Feet."

The 411: Happy Feet begins its 2017-18 school/dance year on Sept. 11. with an array of tap, jazz, and ballet classes for beginners and continuing students ages three through adult, including a Tiny Toes parent participation class for two- to three- year-old children. Happy Feet dancers will be performing at at the 2017 Winterfest on Dec. 3. MORE INFO.

When Richmond resident Matt LemMon took over the Tam High football team earlier this year, he knew he wanted to instill two major things in his players: an extremely high level of conditioning, and a desire to give back to their community.

On the eve of the Red-Tailed Hawks' 2017 season – they play at Piner High on Saturday at 2pm – LemMom has accomplished both of those goals. He instituted a "Hell Week" of fitness training that one player called "the hardest week of my life," according to the Marin IJ, and his players did yeoman's work last month to help the City of Mill Valley widen one of its acclaimed Steps, Lanes & Paths. 

The latter project came after some after some nimble collaboration. LemMon reached out to Ronnie Moore, the City's Volunteer Coordinator, who then connected with Public Works Supervisor Denise Andrews, who remembered that Parks & Recreation Commissioner Betsy Bikle had asked that SLP37, a hilly path that connects Monte Vista and Marion avenues through the dense woods along Earnscliffe Canyon Park in Cascade Canyon, get some attention.

Enter LemMom and 25 of his players, who helped widen the path considerably, Andrews says.

"We're extremely grateful that Matt reached out to us and that his players could help us make this path wider, allowing for safer passage for its users," she says. 

LemMon, who replaced Jon Black, the Red-tailed Hawks' coach since 2011, grew up in the East Bay and was a standout player at St. Mary’s High in Albany. For the past four seasons, he was an assistant football coach at Hercules High and a teacher at De Anza High in El Sobrante. 

LemMom says that his grandmother attended Tam High in the 1940s, and that the inspiration for the service project came from his grandparents and father. "They always told me that it’s not just what you do in school and on the field but it's the extra things you can do for people," he says. "I want the kids to understand that." 

LemMom says he hopes the SLP37 project is the first of more he'll have his players do more after the coming grind of the Marin County Athletic League season and, hopefully, a playoff run. He

"The kids that missed this project already asked if they could do something else," LemMon says. "They're excited to do more."

Four years ago, as tech industry veteran Doug Tarr helped his then-9-year-old son and his friends dip their toes into the world of coding at the dining room table, striking international software licensing deals and writing a book that serves as a technology resource guide for parents weren’t exactly on his to-do list.

But those are among the creative strategies that Tarr’s ever-booming MV Code Club has deployed as the business continues to feed an insatiable demand for its ability to teach kids in first through 10th grade how to code.

The reason? Tarr knows that coding for kids has passed its nascent stage. In a recent White House meeting with President Donald Trump, Apple CEO Tim Cook remarked that “coding should be a requirement in every public school,” and a recent estimate found that there are as many as 500,000 open computing and data-science jobs in the U.S. but fewer than 50,000 college students graduating with the qualifications to fill them. With little doubt about the demand for MV Code Club, Tarr is committed to growing the business in a sober, efficient way that keeps costs from ballooning and maintains his initial vision for it.

“We’re a bigger organization now,” says Tarr, who moved to Mill Valley in 2012 with his wife J’Amy, a Mill Valley native and fashion and textile designer after stints in Seattle, New York City and San Francisco. “I had a vision for what this could be and I was very specific about how I wanted this to be effective for the kids. I wanted to make sure that the experience for the kids who came here was a good one. We needed to do it right.”

To that end, Tarr has taken a multi-faceted approach to MV Code Club’s growth. He hasn’t eschewed the obvious step of opening more locations beyond its flagship Mill Valley “lab” downtown on Miller Avenue in the Mill Creek Plaza building, where his wife also runs her atelier-style design studio upstairs. In fact, MV Code Club opened its Greenbrae location in 2014 as Tarr quickly realized that traffic and logistics were keeping many students from outside of town from making it to their downtown space.

Locations in San Francisco’s Laurel Heights neighborhood and in Redwood City followed in 2015 and 2016, respectively, and MV Code Club opened a fifth location in Albany last fall. The first four locations each teach between 100-150 students, Tarr says. More locations are on the way in the next year in San Mateo and the East Bay.

But while those new locations expanded MV Code Club’s footprint and addressed a need within communities where there was demand for its curriculum, Tarr knew he had to diversify what he was offering.

“Teaching coding can be pretty hard, and we hire trained software developers to teach kids, so if you just keep scaling, you might lose some of your ability to meet the needs of the kids and their parents,” he says.

The program has evolved from those early days as a casual, drop-in to more of a structured membership program that allows instructors to foster strong relationships with students that go beyond technical instruction and into mentoring. MV Code Club also has a popular, distinct summer camp program that organized around “week-long capsules where students get to make a game or build a robot – it’s very project-oriented,” Tarr says.

The move that struck the right balance between meeting demand and maintaining Tarr’s vision was launching after-school programs at a variety of Bay Area schools. The programs are 8- and 10-week sessions for K-8 students to learn Scratch, Javascript, and Robotics Platforms. MV Code Club now operates more than 15 after-school programs without the inherent real estate costs associated with a new physical space.

“We want to continue to grow our visibility beyond Mill Valley and Marin, and working with schools helps us do that,” Tarr says. “Getting our curriculum and content out there however we can is really valuable.”

Tarr has also taken that vision well beyond the Bay Area, licensing the MV Code Club software he’s developed over the years to coding programs in New York City, Connecticut and even in China.

“I’m a developer – my solution to a lot of problems is software,” Tarr says. “Software provides a great way to grow and maintain consistency at scale by offering a great experience. A lot of my effort has really gone into that system so that we have a blueprint with curriculum guidelines, training and all sorts of stuff for people – that’s how we can scale over time.”

That software-based blueprint, particularly its curriculum, is an iterative, collaborative thing, he says.

“The teacher is the number one factor that determines the success of a student, and those teachers all need input into the curriculum they’re given,” Tarr says. “They all participate in the creation of the curriculum.”

That laser-like focus on the maintaining high educational standards has helped MV Code Club build a great reputation within the increasingly crowded coding-for-kids landscape. MV Code Club garnered a Gold for Best Technology Camp, a Silver for Best Technology Program and a Bronze for Math or Science Support from the widely read Bay Area Parent “Best of the Best” awards.

Tarr’s next big project – and an opportunity to meet the demands of parents who come to him with an array of technology-related questions around issues like screen time and email use – is to write a book, a parent resource guide around STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) education.

“One value I didn’t realize we were providing is that parents are often at a loss on a lot of these subjects and we’re the experts for them,” says Tarr, who hopes to have the book done by Spring 2018. “We get the same questions over and over, and this book will hopefully become a resource for parents around those issues.”

With all of those diverse programs and projects in play, Tarr is confident that MV Code Club will continue its growth in a smart, sustainable way.

“The value of our business is what people think of us, so if we can continue to reach a larger audience without a huge amount of capital to put into it – and maintain that reputation, we’ll be in a good place," Tarr says.

The 411: MV Code Club is at 38 Miller Ave., with locations in Greenbrae, Redwood City, San Francisco and Albany. MORE INFO.

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Donna Seager and Suzanne Gray have long wanted to host an exhibit at their downtown Mill Valley gallery that centered around human rights and social change.

The duo have done just that in spades, landing the first solo painting exhibit from legendary singer-songwriter and activist Joan Baez, whose “Mischief Makers,” a series of acrylic paintings of some of the most famous “risk-taking revolutionaries,” runs Sept. 1 to Oct. 1 at the Seager Gray Gallery at 108 Throckmorton Avenue.

“We’re thrilled to be able to showcase this beautiful work from Joan,” Seager says, noting that her gallery has hosted a number of events this year for organizations that have “might have been negatively impacted by the current administration,” like Canal Alliance and Marin City schools. “No one has walked the walk and talked the talk more consistently than Joan Baez. For Suzanne and I, Joan with her dedication to nonviolence and equal rights is the perfect person to put forth this message.”

Baez leaves no doubt where she drew the inspiration for these paintings.

“The choice of subjects for this ... comes as a reaction to the collapse of decency and moral standards which is currently being made obscenely evident in our government and its supporters,” says Baez. “In stark contrast, the ‘Mischief Makers’ are people who are willing to accept suffering, but never inflict it, to die for their cause, but never kill for it, and keep a sense of mischief through it all.”

Long before the exhibit opens, “Mischief Makers” has left no doubt that Baez’s star power and her focus on agents of social change is a massive draw. Seager says that all of the exhibit's paintings have already been sold, a boon to all involved, particularly Carecen SF, the organization to which Baez is donating a portion of the proceeds. Carecen SF is dedicated to assisting Latino and other immigrants, as well as under-resourced families in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The paintings span a veritable who’s who of activists who brought about social change through nonviolent action, including Martin Luther King Jr., Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Czech Velvet Revolution leader Vaclav Havel, Malala Yousafzai, Bob Dylan, Congressman John Lewis, farm worker heroine Dolores Huerta, folk legend and activist Harry Belafonte, poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, spiritual leader Ram Dass, the Dalai Lama, among many others. The exhibit also includes Mimi Fariña, who founded the famed Corte Madera-based Bread and Roses organization, as well as civil rights leader Reverend William Barber, Vietnam draft resistance leader and author David Harris, and Native American medicine woman and activist Marilyn Youngbird.

Baez also includes a portrait of herself as a young woman, based on a photo taken by acclaimed photographer Yousuf Karsh at Struggle Mountain a compound in the Los Altos Hills that was a haven for resistors of the Vietnam War draft, according to the exhibit catalog. Baez says that when Karsh arrived at the mountain retreat, he was “aghast” to see that Baez had cut her long black locks into a “a more utilitarian bob.” In painting her throwback self-portrait, “I gave myself my hair back,” she says.

The Seager Gray exhibition comes during a landmark year for Baez, who was recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In her induction speech (see below for full speech), Baez said, “Let us together repeal and replace brutality and make compassion a priority.”

After the speech, Baez performed “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” followed by “Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” with longtime friends Mary Chapin Carpenter and Indigo Girls.

The 411: “Mischief Makers,” a series of acrylic paintings by Joan Baez of some of the most famous agents of nonviolent change, runs Sept. 1 to Oct. 1 at the Seager Gray Gallery at 108 Throckmorton Avenue. A reception for the artist is set for Saturday, September 16 from 5:30-7:30pm. An RSVP is required – contact the gallery. MORE INFO.

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One of Mill Valley's theatrical treasures, the Curtain Theatre has been producing free theater in Old Mill Park since 2000.

Its 2017 edition takes on Moliere's “The Miser,” which tells the tale of Harpagon, the widower whose love affair with money forces his children and servants to scheme to achieve their hearts’ desires. Hilarity and complications ensue, and love eventually triumphs.

Directed by Kim Bromley, the nine-show run begins Saturday, August 19 and runs through Sept. 10; 2 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and Labor Day at the Old Mill Park Amphitheatre. Admission is FREE. MORE INFO.

In the eight years since longtime Mill Valley resident Annie Thistle launched her Performing Arts Academy of Marin (PAAM) in her living room, the academy has grown by leaps and bounds. Thistle moved PAAM into a space at the Community Church of Mill Valley in summer 2009, then in the Alto Plaza shopping center in early 2010, and then to the 2,800-square-foot storefront space above Balboa Cafe at Mill Creek Plaza that is now home to The Hivery.

In late 2015, as she was juggling multiple venues because her space wasn’t big enough, Thistle moved PAAM to a 6,000-square-foot space at 60 Belvedere Drive in Strawberry, just behind the Strawberry Village shopping center.

As PAAM’s student body and faculty continues to grow, so have Thistle’s ambitions. PAAM has been offering acro dance, an athletic style that combines classical dance technique with precision acrobatic elements. To accommodate her community’s interest in acro as well as tumbling and gymnastics, Thistle is launching Tumblespot, a 3,000-square-foot hub for kids ages 18 months to 10 years old.

Tumblespot opens Sept. 11 at 750 Redwood Hwy., Suite 1212, occupying half of the 6,000-square-foot former space of ideal stationers that closed in September 2014. Monthly membership is $100 (one child taking one weekly class), but Thistle is offering a special membership rate of $50 in September given the Sept. 11th opening date.

PAAM is in the final stages of renovating the sizable space, outfitting it with gymnastics and acro apparatus, as well as installing the same engineered dance floor as PAAM has at its 60 Belvedere.  

Tumblespot’s curriculum for each age group and class incorporates foundations, coordination, strength, technique, agility and fun for young athletes and artists.

The program was created by Thistle, who serves as its artistic director, as well as Acro Director Samantha Sullivan, who brings decades of teaching and managing experience as well as her own training as an artistic gymnast, rhythmic gymnast and dancer. Sullivan is joined by Alicia Cardoza, KT Tesch and Elyse O'Donnell as instructors at Tumblespot.

Tumblespot will open with the following classes: “Supernovas: Parent & Me” for ages 18 months-2 years, “Tumble Stars (Ages 3-5), Mini Acro Stars (Ages 5-7) and Acro Stars (Ages 7-10).

The 411: Tumblespot opens Sept. 11 at 750 Redwood Hwy., Suite 1212. MORE INFO & SIGN UP.