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. See part 1 of our Year on Stage 2025 feature here.
Oasis was dead. It was a certainty. I was there when Peaches Christ’s planned tribute to Heklina suddenly became a wake for the very venue hosting the tribute. I was there in October when the company’s annual Rocky Horror production went from ridiculously raunchy to absolutely heart-breaking. I, like all of you, have spent the last half-year reading the announcements and comforting friends as we counted down the days ‘til their New Year’s Eve swan song. The only thing left to do was brace for the inevitable.
That’s when the inevitable became “Not yet.” In the sort of unbelievable plot twist one would expect to see in an Oasis show, the company was saved. They got a donation so big that not only does owner and co-founder D’Arcy Drollinger vow to re-start programming in the new year, but—and this is major—D’Arcy also plans to finally buy the building itself. Off-hand, I can’t remember a local (indie) company doing that since CounterPulse finalized the purchase of their building in 2023.
It was an otherwise great ending to a year where, I’m sorry to say, I was proven right about what would happen, as the “anti-DEI” wave swept politics and, alas, the arts. Fortunately, it wasn’t the only high point to be found. Having spent last week lamenting Bay Area theatre’s 2025 low points (and trust, there’s a lot I had to leave out), it only helps to look at high ones.
Hell, even though Killing My Lobster became yet another local indie troupe to pump the brakes on their operations, they also provided a holiday surprise by announcing their new residency at Z Space’s Z Below. So far, they’ve only announced Sketch on Speed runs rather than any proper shows, but SF’s mainstay sketch troupe showed they aren’t as dead as they themselves thought they were. That they’re returning to their once-longtime venue of Z Below makes it feel all the more like a homecoming.
Bay Area theatre is nothing if not resilient. And off-beat. And unabashedly political. Nearly six years into this very-much-not-over-pandemic, I’ve gotten used to companies, performers, and audiences happily sticking their heads in the sand to ignore the horrible things around them. That’s why the ones that actually confront those issues stand out for the better.
I briefly mentioned last week how local theatres, by and large, either completely ignore the genocide in Gaza or only speak of it in passing. Then, there’s Golden Thread, which continued to shout about the genocide at every possible opportunity. Even when they didn’t mention it by name (the fantastic The Pilgrimage, the uneven Azad), the company made pro-Palestinian support central to their very existence. When they did mention it by name (commandeering the upper-level of ACT’s Toni Rembe for The Return), it resulted in both one of the year’s best shows and an incendiary condemnation of political indifference.
I could say the same thing about Oakland Theater Project, whose season drew none-too-subtle parallels between traditional and contemporary Nazis. The results could be heart-breaking (I am My Own Wife), if overwrought (Cabaret), but they were always visceral. None more than one of the year’s best shows: their production of Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs. The same year theatres of all sizes began to roll back their DEI progress, Hansberry’s nearly-six-decade-old text has lost no power in its meticulous dismantling of white privilege and colonial apologism. OTP’s production seemed to point an accusatory finger at modern Bay Area “liberals” who say they disapprove of what’s going on in the White House (what’s left of it), but scoff protestors who risk everything to fight the power.
I certainly had my fill of those so-called “liberals” earlier this year. Whereas most of us never needed to wait for the rise of fascism to make our voices heard, center-left “liberals” staged kid-glove demonstrations (No Kings, Hands Off, etc.) that paid lip service to real change as they turned their noses up at actual leftists. It was bad enough that they’d pre-emptively blame said leftists for being attacked by cops, but any public demonstration that welcomes corporate shill Scott Wiener doesn’t care about “change” unless it’s the kind that goes in your purse.
Here, too, Bay Area theatre folk led by example. Beyond all the comfortable liberal sound and fury signifying nothing, grassroots demonstrations were where the power of the people could be felt in force. It’s where poets and playwrights like Tiny Garcia could be found, even as tent villages were being ripped apart; it’s where Latine actors and directors would gather en masse in an attempt to stop ICE agents from storming local court houses; it’s where one could run into members of the SF Neo-Futurists, actors from Oakland, and a fellow playwright-journalist ahead of the Trans March in Dolores Park (where the mayor was famously chased away to go cry into his cotton Dockers).
And no, it’s not lost on me that just a few days later, SF Mime Troupe—which almost lost its entire season to DOGE cuts—staged their annual 4th of July show in that same park. The script’s anti-Trump fervor made for an even better show than their last anti-Trump show, and the audience ate up every moment of it.
That’s who’s making the most important theatre in the Bay Area. These are the folks who have had nearly every ounce of funding taken away in an attempt to silence any non-conformist voice. Rather than surrender, the folks above simply became more determined to be thorns in the side of The Establishment. They responded to nationwide racism, xenophobia, and homophobia by being their most diverse, inclusive, queer selves—with stories to match. Yes, they begged for funding just like the rest of us, but they refused to let a lack of funding be a stumbling block to speaking truth-to-power. You’d be hard-pressed to find any such action from the board members of the Bay’s multi-million-dollar theatres.
Hell, even if you don’t want to get overtly political, the bigger theatres still came in second in providing broad entertainment. ACT proudly patted itself on the back for world-premiering an ultimately toothless Oakland musical, but it was CenterREP’s horny senior citizen musical that pleasantly resonates at the end of the year. SF Opera’s Dead Man Walking was a gorgeous production, but FlyAway Productions’ I Give You My Sorrows managed to both entertain and enlighten with its own depiction of incarcerated citizens.
That’s what the bourgeoisie will never comprehend: the money to make art isn’t nearly as important as the message conveyed through that art. It’s bad enough that the past decade and a half has seen independent artists fight harder to show off their work. What’s more, the past five years have watched more and more outlets crumble under an economic and healthcare crisis that is nowhere near over. Finally, the past 12 months have seen the highest office in the land all but wipe out the public art sector in favor of funding oligarchs and promoting white supremacy.
Yet, the artists themselves endure. When Francis Ford Coppola appeared in Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, he said “If you ever want to know who’s running the world, look and see who’s hiring the artists, ‘cause then you’ll know who’s in power.” If I were to add anything to that quote, it would be “If you ever want to know what scares powerful people, look at the art made by someone who doesn’t care about money.” That’s the sort of person who’ll still be standing when all the ivory towers crumble.
That’s what strikes me each and every year about Bay Area theatre: it never ceases to surprise, provoke, and inspire. The Hail Mary save of Oasis and slow return of Killing My Lobster are great cap-offs to a year that’s seen how well we do when pushed to the brink. The fewer resources there have been, the more bold the work has become. If I’m left with any single conclusion about this year’s output, it’s that when the world needed to be both entertained and politically motivated, Bay Area theatre answered the call like no other place.
Also, Marga Gomez is a national treasure.
