- In 2015, Mina Morita assumed the reins of Crowded Fire Theatre Company from Marissa Wolf.
- In 2016, Eric Ting replaced Jonathan Moscone as artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater.
- Since 2017, Aldo Billingslea has been serving as Interim Artistic Director of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.
- In 2018, Pam MacKinnon took over from Carey Perloff as artistic director of American Conservatory Theater.
- The Aurora Theatre Company recently announced that Josh Costello will succeed Tom Ross as its artistic director.
- On September 1, Johanna Pfaelzer will take over the helm of Berkeley Repertory Theatre from Tony Taccone.
- TheatreWorks Silicon Valley will soon announce its choice to succeed Robert Kelley (the company's founder and artistic director).
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| The renovated interior of the 300-seat Strand Theatre on Market Street in San Francisco |
When Perloff expressed hope that tech workers might be drawn to attend performances of "high school kids creating their own monologues," I thought she was off her rocker. While the traveling salesmen in 1957's The Music Man, kept hammering home the point that "You gotta know the territory," the Bay area's infrastructure for developing new works has undergone substantial change.
Just as the traditional publishing industry has been upended by blogs, e-books, podcasts, Twitter, Amazon, and new technologies (which are having the same democratizing effect that word-processing programs did 30 years ago), some of the more established theatrical nonprofits are now being challenged by younger, leaner, and more free-wheeling organizations. Many of today's young professionals are highly creative talents whose salaries help to support their artistic efforts as playwrights, actors, and directors. Not only is this growing colony of artists highly mobile and adaptable, their deft use of social media (as well as crowdsourcing tools like GoFundMe and Kickstarter) makes it much easier to draw people to readings of their work (or stage appearances) than ever before. As a result, there seems to be a higher percentage of people supporting the creative efforts of their friends on a regular basis than whatever is being offered by the nonprofit theatre down the street from their office. They're often a more enthusiastic audience, too.
For many years, the Art Space Development Corporation ran Thick House (a 99-seat theatre on Potrero Hill) with a commitment to supporting "art that reflects and engages the San Francisco Bay area's racially and culturally diverse audience community." ASDC stresses that "when art is relevant and accessible it can transform the world, so our work rises naturally out of connecting to our local community, to popular culture, and to events of the day."
EXIT Theatre (which now has four performance spaces under one roof) hosts the annual San Francisco Fringe Festival. This year will also mark the 10th anniversary of the San Francisco Olympians Festival (whose 2019 festival is entitled "You've Got Gaul!"). Created by Stuart Bousel, this festival has so far featured the work of 110 writers, 85 directors, 447 actors, and 45 fine/graphic artists at the EXIT.
In December 2014, PianoFight! debuted its new Taylor Street home (on the site of the Original Joe's restaurant) as a multipurpose facility capable of staging 1,500 performances for more than 50,000 people each year. What was once a three-man producing team has morphed into a company of nearly 50 artists that aim to stay true to the organization's mission of producing new works by new artists. Pianofight's website boasts that:
"We provide space and infrastructure to hundreds of artists. During the day, we are the home base for the offices and classrooms of community nonprofits like Tenderloin Walking Tours and Code Tenderloin (which runs a job-readiness program for residents of the Tenderloin). Our two intimate theaters and cabaret stage host music, comedy, plays, dance, film screenings, drag, magic, variety shows and more, while our restaurant and bar serve up new American bites and classic cocktails. Every burger you buy, drink you sip, and show you see helps keep a community-centric creative space vibrant and thriving."
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| Poster art for Pianofight |
Since 2015, Oasis (a nightclub built in the 8,000-square foot venue that was once a gay bathhouse) has been hosting "local and visiting drag stars, cabaret and performing artists, live musical acts, amazing DJs and more."
A major shot in the arm recently came from PlayGround (Berkeley's famous incubator program for new playwrights), which completed a $290,000 renovation of ASDC's Thick House Theater and relaunched the facility as Potrero Stage: The PlayGround Center for New Plays. With PlayGround managing the facility, the space now offers shared offices, rehearsal space, and a state-of-the-art theatre to resident companies (Crowded Fire Theatre, Golden Thread Productions, 3Girls Theatre, and Playwrights Foundation's Bay Area Playwrights Festival) as well as short-term rentals by companies like Bread and Butter Theatre and Quantum Dragon Theatre.
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| The intimate interior of the 99-seat Potrero Stage |
PlayGround's newest initiative is the PlayGround Innovator Incubator, which it bills as "a multi-year intensive incubation program to support theatrical innovation and the launch of new innovative theatrical production companies." The program is designed to select up to six projects/teams per year with the goal of providing each team with access to "a suite of services and resources in support of their initial development, first production, and strategic plan for post-incubation sustainability."
The program's ultimate goal is "to create several bold new companies that will make a lasting and significant contribution on the Bay Area theatre community while further establishing Potrero Stage as a leading center for new play development and production." The first Innovators Showcase (scheduled for August 1-25, 2019) will shine its light on the following new companies: Moonrisers, Poltergeist Theatre Project, Queer Cat Productions, Same Boat Theatre Collective, Theatre Cultura, and The Epic Party Theatre.
I recently spent a night at the Potrero Stage during the second annual Playground Solo Performance Festival. In his program note, PlayGround's artistic director, Jim Kleinmann, notes that:
"The festival, initiated last winter as one of PlayGround's new 'pop-up' programs (and now an annual wintertime tradition) is just one of the many ways PlayGround supports the development of new voices, new plays, and new audiences. In May, PlayGround will present our 23rd annual PlayGround Festival of New Works, a showcase of the best new short and full-length plays by Bay area playwrights, including the world premieres of Ruben Grijalva's Anna Considers Mars and Katie May's A History of Freaks, both originally developed at past festivals. In addition to PlayGround's expanding new play programs, this theatre serves as home to many of the Bay area's other leading new play developers and producers."
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| PlayGround's artistic director, Jim Kleinmann accepting a National Theatre Company Grant from the American Theatre Wing in 2014 |
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For those who love a good story, a well-crafted monologue can be a richly rewarding dramatic experience. The two most likely places to experience monologues in the Bay area are the San Francisco Fringe Festival and The Marsh (which has locations in Berkeley as well as the Mission District). Watching gifted monologists like Dan Hoyle, Nilaja Sun, Martin Moran, Charlie Varon, Ann Randolph, and John Leguizamo can introduce an audience to an invisible (yet often magical) cast of characters depending on the performer's vocal and dramatic skills.Not every playwright is a gifted actor, However, most monologists write their own material. Before the performance, PlayGround's Associate Director, Annie Stuart, told the audience how Playground's Solo Performance Festival came into being. After taking over management of the Potrero Stage, the company's leadership team realized that they needed to fill in blocks of calendar time when the theatre was vacant. With numerous playwrights involved in PlayGround's classes and writing programs, they turned to their own talent for suggestions. Their response provided an easy solution to filling the calendar while creating a new showcase for PlayGround's playwrights.
On February 8, I witnessed two monologues (one by an artist whose work I had seen on numerous occasions, the other by an artist who was new to me). Kathryn Seabron started off the evening with Angry Black Woman, a performance which fed the audience some startling facts about how black women have been systematically diminished, culturally overlooked, and professionally ignored. Using her own experiences in the workplace to demonstrate the emotional fragility of a white employee (who complained to HR that "Kathryn doesn't like me!"), Seabron explained how, despite being more efficient, more punctual, doing more work, and living up to her job description, the simple fact that she didn't smile at work left her co-worker sufficiently threatened to report her to management.
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| Kathryn Seabron in Angry Black Woman (Photo by: R.J. Johnson) |
Describing misogynoir as "the patent hatred of Black women," she preached to an audience of enthusiastic theatregoers who easily fell into a "call and response" mode of participation. Just when people were beginning to feel comfortable enough to relax, Seabron headed off in an unexpected direction. Informing the audience that she also works as a performer and emcee named Juicy D. Light in shows like Oakland's First Friday Follies, Berkeley's Debauchery, and San Jose's Bad Influence Burlesque she segued into a striptease during which she doffed her wig, costume, and bra so that the audience could see every ounce of her humanity. The response was huge and well deserved for both her skill as a performer as well as the strength of her writing.
Seabron may be a tough act to follow, but Michael Phillis is an actor, director, playwright, filmmaker, and educator who loves a challenge. Known for his keen sense of humor, the ease with which he can inhabit a character (be it male, female, or a drag role he concocted from his fertile imagination), since moving to San Francisco Phillis has been associated with the New Conservatory Theatre Center, Thrillpeddlers, and Oasis (where he was the co-creator and director of Baloney (San Francisco’s popular gay all-male revue). Phillis appeared as the flamboyant Cody in a web series entitled The Gay Husbands of San Francisco. In 2015, he wrote, directed, and starred in a comedic short film entitled Mini Supreme.
Phillis's latest creation is the frazzled new Director of Human Resources at a large corporation who is in way over her head but gamely trying to keep things together. The promotional blurb for Patty From HR Would Like A Word reads:
"No, you’re not fired… but it may be even worse. Patty is giving a company-wide presentation and attendance is MANDATORY. But when things go spectacularly wrong, everyone’s least favorite HR manager goes outrageously off-script and inadvertently destroys every human resource in her path. This new solo comedy is a hilarious and poignant parody of corporate culture and political correctness that skewers the San Francisco elite and disrupts the disruption generation."
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| Michael Phillis in Patty from HR Would Like A Word |
Phillis's performance showcases his comedic genius as well as his unrelenting stamina as Patty's obsessive-compulsive traits ("See, I'm learning!") collide with her blazing incompetence as her career goes down in flames. It's a magnificently crafted and executed tour de force performed by a talented artist with a formidable tool box of theatrical skills. Hopefully, when Patty returns to wreak more havoc on corporate life, you'll want to be there for another one of her grand and glorious meltdowns.
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