Polls are open for our 2026 Best of the Bay! Vote here now, and enjoy our Editors’ Picks of our favorite Bay Area things, which we’ll be posting throughout the month.
Now 50 years old, Theatre Bay Area has lost none of its power or drive to support performing artists and boards-trotting local organizations, weathering several of the city’s unnerving arts booms and busts but still showing up for each glorious curtain call. The largest arts service organization of its kind, “supporting the radical creativity of members with unparalleled access to educational, financial, and professional resources,” the nonprofit remains dedicated to its core philosophy: the arts are essential to a healthy and democratic society.
The most visible manifestation of that mantra is Bay Area Theatre Week (September 10-20, with discounts to shows into fall), a 10-day odyssey through the local stage scene that offers affordable access to plays and musicals through free and discounted tickets. Perusing Bay Area Theatre Week’s offerings, you’ll encounter productions large and small, polished and scruffy, institutional and under-the-radar. Then, you’ll be faced with the dilemma of having to choose.
Will you be staying cool with director Emma Rice’s hyper-kinetic adaptation of beloved movie North by Northwest at ACT? Or heating up the kitchen with The Cook at Berkeley Rep? Red-nosing at Theatre Rhinoceros (another 50-year-old!) with a romp through Clownish? Bram Stoker’s Dracula in Orinda or Elton Dom: The Young Elton John Experience in SF’s Chinatown? Of course, there’s also a three-hour workshop unlocking the Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Workshop’s creation process, or the vigorous energy of Parsons Dance Company gavotting and cavorting across the Presidio Theatre stage…
With dozens of local theaters and companies participating this year, you have all the wealth and diversity of Bay Area stagecraft at your fingertips. We say forego all those secondary needs like sleep and nourishment and dive in randomly to take ins as many as you can, with applause at the ready.
