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.
For my first piece actually written in the new year, I debated whether I should follow up on my previous two, which listed the great and not-so-great things in the 2025 local theater world. I considered doing a “listicle” of recent theatre events and people, or a forecast of what I expect may happen in the Bay Area performing arts scene in 2026.
Both of those ideas were torpedoed when I read this article about Daniel Lurie’s’s 31 hand-picked avatars meant to reshape San Francisco’s city charter over the next year (and we all know that his picks never result in any blunders). I looked at this 31-faced cavalcade of—mostly—corporate capitalists and thought it only slightly less oligarch-ish than his onboarding team from last year. Sure, this one doesn’t have Sam Altman, but this one’s so nakedly appealing to business interests that it doesn’t need Altman.
As it relates to this column, what jumps out at me is not what’s there, but what isn’t: Not a single person on that board has a connection to or seeming interest in SF’s fertile art scene.
The only thing that comes close are the four Philanthropy chairs, but that’s only because they all work on things that are arts-adjacent. One works for the Crankstart Foundation founded by SF Standard-owner Michael Moritz; one is CEO of the SF Foundation, which has good people working for it, but only thinks of art as it applies to paintings sold at street fairs to out-of-town tourists; one is an heir to the Gap, so Danny Denim has a kindred spirit in the form of a fellow cheap-jeans scion; and the fourth is part of an organization that looks like it does nothing but come up with project names like “Democracy Communications Fund” and “Patriots & Pragmatists.”
Not a single one of these people has any known experience in the arts, let alone a knowledge of its importance to a community.
If you follow this column regularly, you’ll know that I don’t believe Danny Denim even knows SF has an arts scene, let alone that it’s one of most unique and renowned art scenes in the entire world. Lurie barely appears at theatres or galleries, nor has he expressed any personal taste in the arts, beyond the latest installation of Burning Man-derived baubles. Look, London Breed loved real estate money, too, but at least when she showed up at theatre openings and opera galas, you believed she actually stayed for the show. Hell, she got busted breaking her own COVID protocols sitting in her favorite jazz club. She even appeared in that SF-shot Matrix sequel we’ve all forgotten about. As far as anyone can tell, Lurie has no interests beyond “be mayor.”
That’s not good for a bleeding arts scene flailing wildly in shark-infested waters. When the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announces that it’ll be shutting down by year’s end, that should be the sign for all localized artistic entities to secure their futures. It should inspire municipal powers make sure their museums, libraries, and other institutions can weather a nationwide storm. Sadly, that’s not what one can expect from SF City Hall. It’s too dedicated to Guv Gav’s old SF mayoral plan of luring Hollywood here with major tax breaks. He’d give even sweeter breaks if you cast his wife in a role. (True story: I made several appearances in the short-lived NBC drama Trauma, including the pilot, which featured Mrs. Siebel in a small role.) That’s doesn’t really help the rest of us who actually pay full taxes.
By happenstance, I’ve been doing some re-filing and -organizing of hard drive files. I wound up listening a phone interview I’d conducted with EXIT Theatre’s Richard Livingston in 2024. He’d wax nostalgic about putting on theatre in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when a company of part-time wait staff and odd-jobbers could rent an SF storefront for $300 per month and used borrowed pews from local churches. Afterward, they’d go home to their apartments, which only cost $100 per month. It was an environment that attracted the cheap and unorthodox, which are a potent combination for artists who just want their work seen. These days, $100 per month will barely cover a reserved parking space. I assume. I don’t drive. SF is a walker’s city, y’all. [Editor’s Note: It resolutely does not.]
Although I haven’t seen an abundance of artistic awareness from Mayor 501s, one would at least expect the more renowned galleries and deep-pocket financiers to have caught his attention by now? If anyone at YBCA or SFMOMA has his ear, they’re being awfully coy about it. (To be fair, he did effusively praise the Institute of Contemporary Art and its temporary “Cube” downtown—housed in a Trump property.) I’m guessing that if he walked down Geary and saw all the now-empty galleries, he’d probably just wonder why they don’t just open more Starbucks locations.
Now, I’m not here to bash the new board as a whole. It does, after all, have a Universities and Non-Profits division that includes folks from the Booker T. Washington Center and Larkin Street Youth Services. I’ve personally known folks whose lives were saved by the latter, so it’s great to see them have a seat at the table. But that’s why the absence of anyone with connection to the arts world disturbs me: art is the voice of the people. It speaks louder and more viscerally than any municipal rep ever will, and it’s often the only outlet for marginalized voices. Not giving the arts a place in policy is saying the people’s voice is unimportant.
Danny Denim isn’t the first SF mayor to court out-of-town oligarchs, but I’m hard-pressed to think of previous mayor so disconnected from the events and activities that make SF so appealing in the first place. He’s trying to cash in the “San Francisco” name without understanding why that name draws in so many from all over.
On top all that, the performing arts still face an uphill battle for cultural recognition. Gone are the days when someone like SF’s own Isadora Duncan could fill an auditorium simply by announcing their pending arrival. The current media landscape spans faux-IMAX screens and TikTok videos on watches. I’m fond of the Steinbeck quote of how theatre “has been dying for four thousand years and has never succumbed,” but I love theatre so much that it hurts to see it have to fight for life. Then again, that’s probably why the quote continues: “It requires tough and devoted people to keep it alive.”
The new charter is supposed to be on the ballot later this year. But this is a big deal, so we’ll see if it makes that deadline. Should any of the board members happen to step down in that time, I’d love to see them replaced with progressive, artistic board members who ponder “what’s best for the people of SF” by sitting among them on opening night.
Here’s hoping.
