They say politics is a messy business, and it probably won’t get messier than the celebrity grape-stomping contest at this weekend’s 42nd Italian Family Festa at History Park in San Jose.
With Lissa Kreisler calling the action, five Silicon Valley mayors will roll up their pant legs and do their best to crush their way to victory Saturday afternoon. And victory means coming back on Sunday afternoon to go head-to-head — or really foot-to-foot — with last year’s defending champion, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
The five city leaders vying to unseat Mahan include last year’s two other competitors, Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Milpitas Mayor Carmen Montano, along with three newcomers: Saratoga Mayor Yan Zhao, Morgan Hill Mayor Mark Turner and Sunnyvale Mayor Larry Klein. The competitions take place at 1 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday, but festival attendees can sign up at the grape stomp stage to hop in a barrel, too, throughout the weekend.
Of course, there’s a lot more happening at the festival Saturday and Sunday, which is free to attend and hosted by the Italian American Heritage Foundation. Live musical performances including the authentic Italian music of Italica!, the award-winning San Francisco Brass Band, the Houserockers, singers from Opera San Jose and the Gold Money Band. There’ll be plenty of food favorites — including the Sons of Sicily sausage and ravioli, Tricario Social Club’s polenta and Tony and Alba’s Pizza — along with the return of the wine-tasting garden featuring Guglielmo, Bargetto, Fortino, Rosa d’Oro and Tansy wineries.
And if you want to feed your mind as well as your stomach, you should check out “Gaesatae et Legio Roma!,” a living history group that’ll recreate a Roman encampment from the Late Republic period, with fashions, technology and hands-on activities similar to those that would have been common to Roman legionnaires and citizens of the time.
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The festa runs Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Get more details at www.italianfamilyfestasj.org.
CULTURAL SHOWCASE: Contemporary Asian Theater Scene (CATS), partnering with director and playwright Jeffrey Lo, had a fantastic, sold-out launch for its inaugural Asian American Pacific Islander Playwright Festival at San Jose Stage Company on Saturday night. The event featured staged readings of six short plays by AAPI creators: Victoria Chong Der, Anthony Doan, Reed Flores, Kausar Mohammed, Conrad Panganiban and Christina Ying.
Lo serves as the festival’s artistic producer, with Wynne Chan and Tasi Alabastro directing the readings by 11 AAPI actors — who had about a week of rehearsals to learn the 10-minute productions. In its effort to encourage production of work by AAPI creators and featuring AAPI performers, CATS has committed to producing the festival for at least three years.
GETTING CREATIVE: The Santa Clara chapter of the National League of American Pen Women is hosting an open house Saturday at historic Headen Inman Museum House in Santa Clara that sounds like a houseful of fun. There’ll be artists and writers showing off their works, but you can also stroll by the exhibits, join a 1960s sing-along, see a sketch artist create on-the-spot drawings or check out performances by a standup comic and a ventriloquist. It’s free to attend at 1509 Warburton Ave. from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
