This is Drama Masks, a Bay Area performing arts column from a born San Franciscan and longtime theatre artist in an N95 mask. I talk venue safety and dramatic substance, or the lack thereof.
On both a personal and public level, 2024 feels like a bad comedy. It’s as if someone looked at the last five horrible years and did the movie cliché of asking aloud “How could it possibly get any worse?” before we jump-cut to utter calamity.
That was certainly my experience. I won’t bore you all with the details of Ellis evictions, health crises, and countless other situations that stretched my mental and physical health past their breaking points. (Wasn’t there an election this year or somethin’?)
Believe it or not, I still have a shred of optimism about the new year. Plus, there were so many joyful moments in 2024 that it’s been tricky for me to whittle them down to a coherent list. There were some art and performance moments that struck such a chord with me that I’m honestly starting to think this bipedal species of ours is worth saving, and that this seaside Golden Gate town is worth fighting for. It was outright therapeutic to find those moments and have them still linger.
But there’s the rub: Every therapist will tell you before you can heal, you have to acknowledge and process the hurt. That’s why I’ve assembled the sorta-random list below (which also had to be whittled down). Before I celebrate the Bay Area theatre moments that made me shout to the heavens with praise, I want to focus on a few that made me shake my head in disappointment. See, I can brush off things like a major SF theatre blacklisting me this year (yes, really) ‘cause that justifies what I assumed about their leadership. But most of the entries below are the result of people not willing to put in the minimum effort to do the right thing. I don’t do this to pile onto places that have already had it hard; I do this because I know we can do better.
Well… this is awkward
I’ll do the trivial kvetch first. Me and W. Kamau Bell have shared many of the same IRL connections for nearly 15 years, all Bay Area stand-up comedians, yet we two have never met. I’ve seen him walking around Oakland and Berkeley, but never put him on the spot (even when I was wearing his shirt). By this August, I’d spent the previous month trying to interview him for an article I was writing about his Berkeley Rep show. Both he and his publicist kept giving me the run-around, so the article wound up never happening. So, imagine my surprise when I arrive at The Orpheum for the opening night of Wicked only to see him in the lobby with his family. I didn’t approach or say anything to him, but of course they wound up sitting in front of me. After a month-and-a-half of my potential interview being kicked around like a dodgeball, accidentally running into him seemed like the punchline to a cosmic joke. Then again, he is a comedian.
“Do not, my friends, become addicted to water”
Was there a classic SF arts organization that didn’t have a scandal this year? SF MoMA still hasn’t scrubbed off the stench from last year; SF Symphony seemed to be at war with its own staff and its patrons, who made crass signs in Finnish; SF Opera was reportedly in financial trouble (though, consider the source of that unfounded report); and SF Ballet? They had a lawsuit and, allegedly, a data breech before a major contract impasse dragged out so long that no one knew if The Nutcracker would even go on. (It did, and it was lovely.)
Now, I’ve loved work by each and every one of these institutions and cherish being on a first-name base with many of the fine folks with them, but one can only muster up so much empathy for century-old organizations with lucrative annual donations from a 1%-er patron base. In all of the above situations, the “below-the-line” people—the ones who do the real work—were fighting for enough to simply not starve (a metaphor I personally don’t use lightly this year). No matter how great an opportunity it is to grace their stages, no one should ever have to beg for bread; especially not when singing for people scarfing down cakes.
Worst. Timeline. Ever.
Yes, I love SF Opera. When I caught their revival of the ‘90s opera adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, it was supposed to just stand in comparison to other adaptations. It wasn’t supposed to be quite so much a preview of a reality in which the US is taken over by religious zealots and demagogues. Likewise, SF Mime Troupe’s summer show American Dream, which envisions the possible outcome of second Trump election, was meant to be a fever dream, nothing more.
As shitty as Biden’s four years have been (signing the spending bill that denies trans health care to children may be his final “Fuck you, proletariat” on his way out), the above two shows were meant to be welcome exaggerations rather than pre-cognitive visions. But what would the US be if it weren’t prone to choosing the worst possible outcome?
“What river? What sea?”
Another thing about American Dreams: it was one of the few times the genocide in Gaza was even mentioned. No, I haven’t forgotten Golden Thread, which wonderfully dedicated an entire season to Palestine. But those were the exceptions to the rule. The “proud liberals” of SF (theatre)—so shocked that Roe v. Wade went down and eager to “Stand with Ukraine” two years ago—continued their vow of silence over Palestine. Most couldn’t even be bothered to type a simple “#CeasefireNow.” No, despite two different people setting themselves on fire to protest Israel’s fascist war crimes, the medium-left zipped their lips and hoped we’d change the subject.
Take it from a progressive who started the year protesting and has done so all year: it’s true that silence is compliance. What you aren’t saying speaks volumes. It won’t be forgotten. It won’t be forgiven.
“You know you don’t have to mask, right?”
Gee, what other wide-reaching event does the “liberal” world continue to ignore? As I said in January, “COVID Safety is a Progressive Responsibility.” But let’s pretend the pandemic really was “over”. Let’s say I really am overexaggerating the lingering dangers and that I’m foolish to seek up-to-date representation in the arts. Even if that were true (it’s not), what about when it did matter? COVID is facing a greater artistic erasure than what we Gen-Xers saw with HIV/AIDS in the ‘80s and early-‘90s. Do we have to wait 20 years for the COVID equivalent to Angels in America (which OTP staged this year – sorry I missed it)?
With COVID and Palestine, supposed “lefties” reveal themselves as “centrist” cowards for saying nothing in the face of incalculable death. And in regard to both AIDS and Palestine, props to playwright Tony Kushner for being on the right side of history.
The most important loss
I loved Cal Shakes, both as a patron and (like Oakland’s own Zendaya) a former cast member of its shows. I’ll miss the bats flying over our heads and mid-show weather changes. I recommend everyone read Melissa Hillman’s eulogy to them in American Theatre. Yet, of the two defunct theatres she mentions in that piece, I maintain that Cal Shakes’ loss wasn’t the most significant.
It was Cutting Ball’s.
See, Cal Shakes was great, but it also had corporate sponsors and a Hollywood star representing it. Their closure sucks, but at least they had a chance. Cutting Ball didn’t. It was a storefront theatre in the Tenderloin. Its work was experimental because it wanted to get weird on purpose. It opened doors for Christopher Chen, Marcus Gardley, Eugenie Chan, and company board member Suzan-Lori Parks. Hell, they opened their doors to me. I did original plays with founder Rob Melrose and directed for the company this past February. By summer’s end, we were told that would never happen again.
Cutting Ball’s closure both hurts more and says more about the state of Bay Area theatre in 2024: the loss of a small venue willing to do bold work on the cheap is something that breaks the heart of any would-be artist because it tells them they’ll never breathe the rarified air of the folks who get major publicity. The loss of Cutting Ball is another blow to the things that make SF unique and memorable.
BroadwaySF has three theatres. ACT has two. Cutting Ball has none. The latter did what the others couldn’t: let you see yourself onstage.
