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.
Two important events occurred since last I wrote about Bay Area theatre.
The first involves Sup. Bilal Mahmood. Remember him? He’s the former tech CEO who lied about his work history to take Dean Preston’s District 5 seat. He loves corporations, though he occasionally pushes for greater accountability before backtracking completely.
Well, Mahmood’s got just the bestest-ever idea to spruce up his Tenderloin streets. As his fellow corporate Dems were doin’ a whole lotta nothin’ (except falsely claiming that a billionaire tax would send California into an apocalypse), Bilal hopped on Insta to propose turning Market Street into “a theatre arts district”. How? Details are sparse, but he wants five mil to get started.
I wonder, will that announcement prove Mahmood knows nothing about SF theatre without actually saying he knows nothing about SF theatre?
“So, imagine art-filled crosswalks that actually feature your favorite plays and musicals, interactive imagery and lighting and led lighting and billboards that actually indicate with San Francisco character.”
There it is.
48 Hills’ own Tim Redmond has a name for what Bilal is proposing: Manhattanization. Mahmood doesn’t want to show off SF’s unique, eclectic theatre, he wants a faux-Great White Way where every venue is owned by ATG (formerly BroadwaySF, formerly SHN). He sees place where an inoffensive Dear San Francisco plays next door to whatever jukebox musical just arrived, ensuring tourists never have to watch plays full of those “San Francisco politics” Fox News warned them about. It’s what Feinstein wanted to do. It’s what Guiliani and Bloomberg successfully did back east.
As someone who’s been part of SF theatre for nearly 30 years and writing about it professionally about half that time, Mahmood’s cookie-cutter proposal for an SF theatre district is particularly clueless, given that he represents the Tenderloin. The same Tenderloin that was once the heart of SF’s indie theatre scene. The Tenderloin that was home to EXIT Theatre, Cutting Ball, PianoFight, Ragged Wing Ensemble, and beloved festivals like SF Fringe and Bay Area One-Acts, to name but a few.
Mahmood either doesn’t know or care that the reason these innovative artists left SF is the same reason there are so many closed businesses and unhoused citizens in the city: the same rich people he’s courting made the rent too damn high. He doesn’t spell out a plan to fix these problems because working solutions (like the billionaire tax) would turn away the very deep-pocket colonizers he wants to move in.
It was just last month when Mayor Lurie announced his SF charter reform group, of which Mahmood is a member. You’ll recall I had the unfortunate task of pointing out that none of the group’s 31 members had any connection to the city’s arts and entertainment community. Mahmood’s “theatre district” vaporware seems like one of the first steps in Manhattanizing SF. The plan isn’t about supporting long-time talent and residents, but making our one-of-a-kind city indistinguishable from every other metropolis.
If he were serious about nourishing the arts in SF, he’d tax the techies and look into a universal basic income and housing for artists. In fact, City Hall was supposed to do that very thing back in 2021. What happened, did the bad faith arguments win out? It would help explain why almost no SF arts entity is able to own property in the city.
Which brings me to the other important recent development in SF theatre…
Dance company CounterPulse is one of the few theatre companies to own its building—in the Tenderloin, no less. The planting of stakes by a small, experimental dance troupe as if it were a more-established outfit like SF Ballet has been a ray of hope in an ever-dwindling local arts landscape. Unfortunately, CounterPulse has also been resembling SF Ballet in the worst possible way. No, they aren’t playing the Kennedy Center, but they are embroiled in similar labor disputes.
We theatre-lovers hoped CP would settle the matter reasonably (because if anyone should support and artist’s write to fair compensation, it should be other artists), but last year’s announcements about executive shake-ups did little to ease concerns. Then came the company’s latest email, in which it says they’re “not closing,” just “pausing.”
Where have we heard that before? Sure, Killing My Lobster said the same thing before returning to the stage last month, but they have yet to announce any proper shows for the rest of the year. Aurora said they were pausing indefinitely last year, and their Berkeley venue currently remains empty. Event TheatreF1rst, the East Bay company that always paid performers and crew no less than minimum wage salaries, said that it would be taking a break before vanishing completely. I could go on.
When I reached out to CounterPulse, staff and board member Keith Hennessy, commented that the venue “will continue to be open to both our House Artists (fiscally sponsored artists and companies) and the general public for rehearsal rentals.”
I asked about the specifics of restructuring and if the labor dispute had any influence and he referred me back to aforementioned email. I also asked about artistic and executive director Julie Phelps’ departure and he directed me to their hiring notice for her potential successor.
CounterPulse claim the pause will only last from March to June. Then what? Their renters may be left with no venue to stage whatever they’re rehearsing. Also, it’s hard to believe that the numerous concerns listed in the email can be properly addressed in a single Q2 hiatus. What’s more, the 2020 Covid shutdowns highlighted how independent businesses can’t survive against corporate equivalents with multi-billion-dollar war chests. Sure, it’s encouraging when Oasis gets a stay of execution due to an angel investor, but they’re the rare exception. If every independent artist and venue had that sort of support (say, through taxing all the billionaires and mega-corps in the city), then Mahmood wouldn’t be asking why there are so few theatres and art galleries along Market.
In fact, has he ever been inside them? Does he know that Market is home to both the Jonathan Carver Moore art gallery and comedy club The Function (two of the few such Black-owned establishments in both the Bay Area and in the country)? Knowing that would provide more insight into local theatre and art than whatever touring show is plastered on the marquees of The Orpheum and The Golden Gate.
This past weekend, I went to see a show at Theater 33. If the name doesn’t sound familiar to fellow long-timers, it’s one of the stages in the 533 Sutter multiplex. I remember when that place was home to SF Playhouse upstairs, Playwrights Center SF in the basement, and too-many-stand-ups-to-name in the ground-floor venue. (And yes, I recall many-a post-show cocktail at The White Horse.)
I was there to catch the SF Neo-Futurists’ sold-out all-Asian show, 99 Wrench Market. It was a fun show, full the usual SF Neo laughs and pathos, and with a themed that coincides with the Lunar New Year. It’s the very sort of bold, independent show SF needs more of.
The venue is north of Union Square, sandwiched between a 7-Eleven and a Foreign Exchange. It’s the sort of place on has to seek out, but it’s often worth the trip.
That’s real SF theatre; the kind you won’t find next to the Market Street IKEA.
