San Francisco Playhouse has announced its 22nd season, to be presented September 2024 to September 2025. Unveiled at a special event on March 24th to an enthusiastic group of Playhouse supporters and fans, Artistic Director Bill English and Producing Director Susi Damilano revealed the two musicals and four plays the company will present at its home theatre in the heart of San Francisco’s Union Square Theatre District, 450 Post Street. Subscriptions are now available; single tickets will be available in the coming months at sfplayhouse.org.
Just Announced: Our 2024/25 Season
From the back seat of my parents’ Country Squire station wagon at the local drive-in theatre, I watched Cary Grant dodge a crop-duster and hang off Mount Rushmore and my life-long love of Alfred Hitchcock was born. Years later, while working a graveyard shift summer job at a state mental hospital it was cemented by watching twenty Hitchcock films on TV in a summer-long late-night festival. And discovering The 39 Steps decades later has put the icing on the cake.
Adapted by Patrick Barlow from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film, The 39 Steps effortlessly blends comedy, suspense, and farce. Set in pre-World War II England, it details the adventures of Richard Hannay, a dapper but clueless everyman who becomes caught up in a spiraling intrigue. Barlow has brilliantly condensed the original novel and film into a breakneck-paced tour de force for four actors playing over 150 roles, each performer skillfully jumping between characters with lightning speed serving as a tribute to the versatility of the actors.
Filled with sight gags, puppetry, slapstick and meta-theatre and using ordinary props to create multiple locations and employing classic clowning techniques, The 39 Steps also serves as a great showcase for a director, choreographers, lighting designers, and sound designers. It is an affectionate tribute to the spy thriller genre, as well as a playful satire of its cliches. Through its scintillating dialogue and tongue-in-cheek references to classic spy films, the play both celebrates and parodies the genre, inviting audiences to revel in its absurdity and poke fun at its stereotypes.
As with so many films from the noir genre that Hitchcock set in motion, we are presented with a protagonist who is alienated from himself and others, whose ennui prevents him from having empathy for anyone else. And his journey takes him out of alienation toward a capacity for compassion. But the greatest power of The 39 Steps comes from its ability to appeal to such a wide audience regardless of age or culture. With its universal themes of adventure, romance, and heroism, the play has staked out its own place as a thrilling rollercoaster ride of laughter, suspense and sheer theatrical virtuosity.
In many ways, the world premieres we produce on our mainstage make us the most excited. They are about taking risks, pushing envelopes of what theatre can do, giving our stage to playwrights/prophets to illuminate for us, life as it is being lived in our moment in time. World premieres bring out the best in all of us. Giving birth to a new play can be a thrilling exercise in daring, patience, trust, and vision, four of the most important values at San Francisco Playhouse. For if we want theatre to remain a vital force for building compassion in our community, we must support new work.
When we first read My Home on the Moon by Minna Lee, we were struck by its humor and originality. And yet, it found its way into the pile of scripts by exciting new voices, and we kept looking for a new play for our 23-24 Season. But stealthily, it stayed in our consciousness – its originality, its commentary on the burgeoning world of artificial intelligence, its connection to the Vietnamese culture, its quirky sense of humor. And slowly it started to emerge as a front-runner. The clash of tradition with the future attracted us, and we especially loved that it dealt with the huge critical issues we are facing right now with such hilarious and revealing wit.
We live in a time when the gentrification of the cities by corporate entities is pushing real estate values up and driving the mom-and-pop stores in so many different neighborhoods out of existence. So much so that the essential fabric of our community is being neutered into a cold grey sameness. Minna Lee’s play attacks this problem and at the same time ponders what our growing dependence on AI will do to human consciousness.
In the great tradition begun by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, brought the theatre by Rossum’s Universal Robots, and further explored by many contemporary novelists and filmmakers, Minna Lee asks the truly huge questions. What does it mean to be human? What are the responsibilities of consciousness? Do we mortals have a monopoly on these territories? Can an artificial being share the defining human qualities of love, compassion, and sacrifice? My Home on the Moon may not send us away with answers, but it will surely make us laugh, cry and stimulate curiosity.
Despite our deepening understanding of the subtleties and nuances of human behavior, despite a growing intellectual consensus that good and evil are inextricably intertwined, we are nonetheless living in a world being pushed deeper into extremist positions, where beliefs are polarized into black and white postures, each camp despising the other with little hope for reconciliation.
Guys and Dolls, the classic musical, despite its seemingly innocuous and sanitized depiction of colorful New York characters drawn from the writings of Damon Runyon in the mid-1930s, is actually a brilliant satire of binary thinking. From a 21st-century point of view, it is a story of sex workers, gambling addicts, and right-wing Christian evangelists that explores the binaries of male versus female, good versus evil, saint versus sinner, and criminal versus the law. In the nuanced mind of Damon Runyon and his champions, Jo Swerling, Abe Burrows, and Frank Loesser, Guys and Dolls illuminates the dangers of polarization. Its theme: it is impossible for anyone to be happy living in a world dominated by extremist thinking.
Adelaide’s vision of reforming Nathan prevents her from truly understanding him. Sarah knows she could never love a gambler. Sky could never love an evangelist. Humans beaten down by the depression and reaching to gambling for hope are labeled criminals. As the Save-a-Soul general describes them, they are “evil-looking sinners.” All the characters are miserably locked in polarities, in the kind of binary thinking that insists everything must be either a one or a zero, good or bad, wrong or right. Now, ninety years after Damon Runyon wrote the stories and seventy-five years after Guys and Dolls opened on Broadway, our world is perhaps even more bedeviled by the same kind of polarization.
Of course, like any enduring work of art, Guys and Dolls hides its message in its spectacular humor and one of American theatre’s greatest musical scores and, of course, the antidote it suggests for the polarized world is love. It speaks to us across the decades as clear as the “bell” in one of its greatest songs. It beckons us to open our hearts at this holiday season to the power of forgiveness and transformation. If we look behind its cutesy reputation, we find a work of art determined to bend our souls to empathy and understanding. It does that by opening our hearts with great music, brilliant dialogue, and a message of healing for our troubled time.
I stumbled onto the script of Nollywood Dreams in the Drama Book Shop in New York where all theatre fans must go when visiting. I read it quickly and decided just as quickly to pursue the rights to produce it at San Francisco Playhouse. The Ghanaian-American playwright Jocelyn Bioh has a show opening on Broadway this Fall, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding and two recent hits at Berkeley Rep, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play and Goddess. She has a delightfully fresh new voice and is a rapidly rising star.
The plot is simple, with themes that may sound familiar. We have heard stories like this before, classic Hollywood romcom movies from the 1930s. But this version takes place in Lagos, Nigeria in the Nollywood film industry which churns out more entertainment than Hollywood and nearly as much as the Bollywood industry in India. Our story takes place in the ‘90s when Nollywood was exploding and resembled our Hollywood of the ‘20s and ‘30s when hundreds of films were being made quickly and sophisticated stories took a back seat to edge of your seat melodrama.
However, as we started working on our budget for this season, Nollywood Dreams seemed expensive; a complex set, the need to shoot a film that would be inside the play, a large cast; and we veered away towards doing a two-character, more well-known title instead. I believe we had already created the poster art for this un-named show when one morning, I got a plaintive call from Margo Hall who would be directing that show. “Can’t we do a comedy?” I laughed, and realized she was right. Every season needs to be a balance between tragedy, comedy and musicals and Margo reminded me we needed more laughter to balance the perpetually tense and tragic world around us. So, we bit the bullet and swung back around to Nollywood Dreams, re-did the art and are so happy we did! Our mission requires us to present theatre that lifts our spirits, deepens self-awareness and promotes compassionate community. Nollywood Dreams is definitely here to lift our spirits to match the hopes and dreams of Ayamma, who knows without any evidence that she has what it takes to be a star, and resolutely follow that dream until she succeeds!
Help us find filming locations!
Do you know of a location that we could use to film a trailer for our Nollywood feature film? If so, please fill out this form. We’d be eternally grateful!
Locations:
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Click to submit a locationPurchasing tickets online can be tricky nowadays, especially with the influx of resellers and third-party marketplaces. That’s why we’ve put together this quick guide to empower you to make the best purchasing decision when you decide to come enjoy one of our productions, and find the best tickets at the best prices.
Firstly, and most importantly, never trust any website that claims that “tickets may be sold for above face value” or “doesn’t have these tickets yet but is offering to obtain them for you.”
These websites may not be legitimate, and will never sell you tickets at fair prices. They are also not capable of confirming that the tickets they’re selling are official because they are not affiliated with the Playhouse. Avoid paying excessive fees for a standard playhouse ticket, and avoid purchasing unofficial show tickets.
Secondly, never trust a seller online from a social media platform (like Facebook) or website such as Craigslist. There is no official way to verify that the tickets they are selling to you are legitimate. Unless you are purchasing a ticket from someone you personally know, it is best to avoid these kinds of transactions.
Lastly, always buy tickets from our official website, through our box office, or through an official partner. Our official website sfplayhouse.org is the best place to purchase tickets to any show. You may also call our box office at 415-677-9596, or visit us in person. Additionally, tickets can be purchased through our verified third-party partners Goldstar and TodayTix. These two websites are the only verified third-party partners that can guarantee official SF Playhouse tickets.
We hope that this quick blog post helps with identifying the best methods to purchase official tickets to our shows. If you have any questions or doubts, always feel free to call our box office at 415-677-9596 and we will happily assist you with the process.
Monday, July 24, 7:00 p.m.
By Lee Cataluna
Directed by Bill English
Sons of Maui asks about the relevance of ancient Polynesian myths in modern Hawaii. Maui, the demi-god and trickster, was a hero in the Pacific long before Disney and Dwayne Johnson got a hold of him. This play places Maui in contemporary Maui and asks what a deity like him would do with himself in the modern world. It is a story about traditional roles versus evolved ideas that questions what remains of culture on an island overbuilt with strip-malls and WalMarts. It is also a story about a very complicated family situation and people who struggle to find their own definition of aloha.
450 Post Street Floor 2 (SFPH Mainstage), San Francisco CA 94102
The lobby opens at 6pm for our 7pm show
This is a FREE potluck-style event. We invite you to bring a treat to share, a wine to pour, a friend.
A Chorus Line was the first Pulitzer-winning musical developed in the non-profit world. It opened at the Public Theater on April 15, 1975, and almost immediately transferred to the Shubert Theatre. Broadway was a mess back then. Many theaters were dark, Times Square was run down, full of hustlers and homeless, and many were afraid to go there. New York itself was hurtling into bankruptcy. The year before A Chorus Line opened, Broadway attendance dipped to an all-time low. Many had declared Broadway dead. A Chorus Line almost singlehandedly lit the flame that revitalized Broadway – the rave reviews and the sold-out houses gave hope to a city that was locked in despair. New York had something fabulous to hold it up. The most successful musical in history rescued both Broadway, and perhaps New York City itself.
A Chorus Line was a revolution, not just revitalizing New York but forever changing musical theatre. It was something never before seen on Broadway, an ensemble show with little scenery, no costumes (except for the finale), no intermission, and no stars!
Following an era of lush, extravagantly produced shows, A Chorus Line was the opposite. Called the “original reality show” by original cast member Baayork Lee, A Chorus Line is half dazzling dance and song and half docudrama. Based on dozens of actual interviews between Michael Bennett, the director, and veteran actor/singer/dancers, A Chorus Line is a kind a theatre verité. We even get to watch an audition with twenty-six dancers, and see which are selected, not once but twice!
So why now? Why after almost fifty years is A Chorus Line still relevant? So many of the issues that were rising into our public consciousness in the early seventies still resonate today. We are still a work in progress on the struggles of people of color to make it in the arts, to have their unique communities recognized. We still struggle to accept our bodies for what they are, rather than what our cover girl culture promotes. And having respect for women as artists is still something we have a long way to go with. But resonating even more with us in this divisive, polarized world where humans are splintered into thousands of camps, each clamoring for the microphone, A Chorus Line rises gloriously about the babble of human differences. It demonstrates how we can come together. It shows us clearly that we can do more as a community, that belonging to a great enterprise can be as rewarding – or more so – than individual recognition. Whether we can learn to work together, now more than ever, will determine the salvation or the failure of humankind.
Monday, June 5, 7:00 p.m.
By Tori Keenan-Zelt
Directed by Lauren English
When best friends Molly and Rae were 12, they secretly played JonBenét Ramsey at sleepovers; 20 years later, in the wake of Molly’s sudden death, her 12-year-old daughter, Hazel, knocks on the door of Rae’s guidance office with their old playbook in hand. As Hazel and Rae slide back into the game, each navigates her own unresolved grief. The JonBenét Game explores the delicate, dangerous, and often grey space that true crime gives women to face their worst fears.
450 Post Street Floor 2 (SFPH Mainstage), San Francisco CA 94102
The lobby opens at 6pm for our 7pm show
This is a FREE potluck-style event. We invite you to bring a treat to share, a wine to pour, a friend.