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.
So… the SF Giants bought the Curran Theatre? Gotta admit, I did not have that on my “2025 Bay Area Theatre” bingo card. Who knows what that spells for the classic Shorenstein Hays venue, but this is why I save my year-end pieces for the actual end of the year rather than turning them in mid-November. You never know what could happen before New Year’s.
For instance, I didn’t expect to be writing this very piece just days after PG&E shit the bed (again) and sent most of our fair city into a days-long blackout. I didn’t expect said blackout a mere two weeks after a PG&E gasline caused another residential explosion in the East Bay. And I certainly didn’t expect to write that the aforementioned blackout made notoriously-homocidal robo-taxis cause the very sort of gridlock everyone was expecting to happen from closing The Great Highway.
Readers, being a critic of the dramatic arts means judging outlandish stories on their verisimilitude: I can buy the idea of a Black girl from Kansas bursting into song as she and her anthropomorphic friends “Ease on Down” a yellow-bricked road; I can accept the story of the Chinese Monkey King being trapped under stone for thousands of years without needing sustenance; I can even accept the idea of an eccentric abuela using her camera collection to go on Narnia-style adventures.
But if I’d ever read a script where a twice-impeached Epstein associate promotes asbestos and literally destroys the White House, I’d have called that script poorly-written and nihilistic. “The Giants buy The Curran” seems a minor plot twist in that context.
Speaking of plot twists: While Speakeasy and Boxcar Theatre founder Nick Olivero has been the subject of very unpleasant rumors and accusations over the years, no one expected his face pop up in some low-rent How to Catch a Predator knock-off. The story and its allegations (which, to date, have seen no legal repercussion) paint him as an outright monster—more than even his strongest detractors knew. He wasn’t the only Bay Area AD to step down this year, just the one who did so mired in scandal.
Frankly, when AD Pam McKinnon announced that she’d be leaving ACT, arguably the flagship theatre of San Francisco, there was barely a ripple. Since succeeding Carey Perloff in 2018, McKinnon has produced some good shows and some not-so-good shows, the same as any theatre exec. Therein lies the problem: Nothing about McKinnon’s brief, pandemic-immersed tenure has differentiated itself.
Say what you will about Perloff’s controversial 26 years (and plenty have), at least she left her mark on both the theatre and the Bay Area theatre scene, even before commissioning the construction of The Strand. McKinnon never programmed a season that stood out from the others or directed a show that revealed any signature style.
The one time she did try to make her mark—replacing Perloff’s annual Christmas Carol adaptation with a new post-modern one written by Craig Lucas—the results left a lot to be desired. That there was no Carol production at all this year speaks volumes. It’s not exactly a “go-out-with-a-bang” ending for the head of Northern California’s biggest theatre.
The truly disappointing part of it is how McKinnon’s departure reveals ACT’s no-risk sensibilities. Rather than elevate one of the Bay Area’s many theatrical talents, the company is holding a nationwide search for a successor. It’s a stark contrast to other companies, who have recently passed the reins to someone homegrown: this is the year that Marin Theatre Co. officially began programming under local-actor-director-turned-AD Lance Gardner.
Similarly, Ed Decker is leaving NCTC, the company he founded in 1981, in the hands of Ben Villegas Randle, a performer and director with a decade-long history with the company. ACT had the opportunity to truly live up to their flagship status by showing the world the very sort of talent SF and the Bay Area create on their own. Instead, the company seems to want to be just like everyone else.
Speaking of “everyone else,” there were more theatre obituaries written this year. The oligarchs in the White House have cut every public-funding dime they could to justify tax breaks to the 1%, and many local institutions reached a breaking point, one that had been building since the start of this very-much-not-over-pandemic. Aurora Theatre in Berkeley ceased operations. SF’s Killing My Lobster stuck to classes rather than proper shows. And, lest we forget, the late Heklina’s beloved Oasis will shut its doors after its New Year’s swan song.
These are companies and venues that truly seemed immortal, only to find themselves on the same thin ice that we all have to carefully cross. Even companies and venues that didn’t shut down (like SF Mime Troupe and Brava!, respectively) found themselves pushing harder for funding and cutting back on programming. The earlier system of NEA funding wasn’t perfect, but it was something. Now, everyone’s fighting for larger portions of a much-smaller pie.
The worst theater memory I have of 2025, however, is a more personal one. In fact, that may the incident that occurred at the start of the year. A self-appointed gate-keeper at the War Memorial Opera House put hands on me, and I found myself in that classic Black man’s conundrum of having to restrain myself rather than punch the entitled white man who grabbed me. That incident wound up marking the beginning of a theatre year defined by DOGE-damaged public transit, DEI rollbacks, and next-to-no mention of Palestine outside of Golden Thread shows. (To say nothing of COVID.)
Of course, no help was to be found from SF City Hall. I’m thoroughly convinced Danny Denim doesn’t even know the city has a performing arts scene. Hell, if it weren’t for a recent quote in a press release for eL Seed’s show, I’d be convinced he doesn’t know there’s any art scene at all (and I’m not sure that quote wasn’t just ghost-written by an intern or chatbot). It’s been bad enough watching him kiss the ring and coddle to Big Tech, but he’s set a new standard for obliviousness that doesn’t help when longtime institutions are shutting down and tax-paying citizens are being “vanished” into unmarked vans.
OK, I’m being a total downer for the holidays. But, to quote another born San Franciscan, “the best way out is always through.” I don’t bring up any of the above for the sake of letting the darkness consume you or me. On the contrary: I do it for the sake of taking greater pride in the great things that did occur over the past 12 months. So much shit has taken place that I honestly forgot that we just went through the single-longest government shutdown in US history. That’s not the sort of thing one should ever forget, but it’s been the sort of year where even that blurs in background alongside the world’s richest man proudly performing a Nazi salute—twice. It’s been that kinda year and we need to own it.
That way, we can better appreciate all the good things that happened this past year (and there were many) as we look ahead to more great things on the horizon. We need to document the bad stuff to prepare for more stupidity on the way. We need to look back on all of it and say aloud the three simple words that ring true about this dodgy year: “We made it.”
