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.
It’s tough to write about local theatre in January, given how little theatre there actually is this month. Sure, SF Ballet’s got their annual gala and this week’s Eugene Onegin opener, and both Berkeley Rep and ACT will open shows before the month’s over, but the majority of theatre companies are still planning their 2026 output. That’s harder to do than ever, given last year’s evisceration of the NEA and several philanthropic outlets. From both an arts and business perspective, January is a weird limbo state.
That doesn’t even get into the political clouds that hover above. This election year finds California and the Bay Area having some crucial votes on the horizon. Guv Gav’s finally stepping down, leaving him just enough time to try and kill the proposed billionaire tax (which is to be expected of a guy who praises Charlie Kirk, throws trans kids under the bus, and personally hands out “burner phones” to tech CEOs). Nancy Pelosi also steps down, with three folks looking to succeed her: one on-the-record Progressive; one “moderate” millionaire; and {sigh} Scott Wiener. The latest D4 supe wants to reverse Sunset Dunes, and the entire nation is hoping to flip the House and Senate left-ish. It’s all one big uphill battle, I’ll tell ya that much.
I’d like to say that local arts, entertainment, and culture are destined to be caught in the middle, but as I’ve mentioned before, no one in power seems to be thinking of thinking of the arts at all—more evidence of that came last week when it was announced that the storied California College of the Arts was being swallowed up by Vanderbilt University, with zero eulogizing from the mayor.
I originally wanted this week’s column to try and forecast where local and national arts could go over the next 12 months, but—in typical SF fashion—it’s just too foggy to make out. There are things I’d love to see happen, things I’d hate to see happen, and a few things to which I’m indifferent, but I can’t predict a single one with any certainty. That’s where we’re at now. Any sign one sees is nothing more than a best guess. Having said that, here are a few that have occupied my mind of late.
We could lose another major arts institution (or two).
Aurora Theatre smashed its fundraising goals, but still had to close up shop. Oasis prepared to close, only to be saved at the very last hour. Every other company and venue is walking on thin ice. The thing about thin ice is that the more bodies there are on it, the more likely it is to collapse. I can’t see any one company having more trouble than the other, but it wouldn’t surprise me if more than one decided to call it quits before December. I don’t want that, but it’s no longer a far-fetched idea. Not every theatre can be the Curran and have a major sports team foot the bill. Even if they did, what will that do to the artistic output of that venue or company? Major sponsorship comes with revenue quotas and a call for wide appeal. Believe it or not, there are still artists here who would rather quit than compromise.
At least one local theatre company could go all-in on AI.
Dear readers, I’ve been around long enough to witness art and tech amalgamate in some strange ways: video projection; “Tweet seats”; digital program booklets; and I even sat in on the VR recording of a world premiere show. As you can see, not a lot of these trends stick around. The plagiarism plague of generative AI may well be about to collapse, but it’s become so ubiquitous that it wouldn’t surprise me if a local company saw Sam Altman in the mayor’s office and thought AI would be a safe bet.
ACT tried it last year with their toothless Big Tech musical Co-Founders, which featured a real-time animated avatar voiced by an off-stage actor. SF Ballet incorporated gen-AI visual into a world premiere. A recent Marsh show used a chatbot. The Function—SF’s only Black-owned comedy club—has regular “LaughGPT” shows. I can easily see some board member look at all the above and decide that chatbots are cheaper than cast members. Doing so would inevitably sink them. Honestly, that’s just another reason to hope the bubble bursts sooner rather than later. In fact…
A recession could be a good thing.
We SF folk know a tech bubble when we see it. We’ve been through too many damn recessions. We know they suck. The only silver lining is that when the dust settles, formerly-expensive properties and resources suddenly become dirt-cheap. That’s when artists seize on them and proliferate. That’s what would genuinely save local arts and culture. Rather than courting out-of-town interests who don’t pay local taxes, let the freaks go wild with the shattered remains of unchecked excess. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to see a major economic downturn, but we just came out of the longest government shutdown in US history, so we have to consider it as a possibility. We’ve rebuilt after destructive earthquakes, so we can rebuild from this. We’ll continue to support one another financially as we let loose artistically. We’ve done it before. We can—nay, will—do it again. Speaking of support…
The ties that bind grow stronger.
Though not many indie companies have made 2026 announcements yet, three that have are Crowded Fire, BATCO, and Golden Thread, with the latter doing co-productions with the former two. These are three companies that wear their non-conformist, PoC, and/or super-queer pedigrees on their sleeves. They’re all theatre-making activists. Seeing them unify this year in declaring their intentions promises some incendiary work in the best possible way. I said I wouldn’t make any proper predictions, but with more White House-borne pain on the horizon, the most valuable theatre will be that which confronts that pain head-on. Be it theatre or politics, the grassroots voices are where your focus should rest.
