Stories about Theater
A bright story behind the city’s new mural wave
Artist Vida Kuang grew up in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The anti-Asian racism that ramped up at the beginning of the year followed by the lockdown due to the COVID-19...
City quarantine, set to film for the Roxie’s Mixtape-in-Place fest
When the Roxie Theater announced the first open call for a Mixtape event in 2015, the festival was never meant to become an annual occurrence. The Mission District theater...
Take that, 2020: The Mime Troupe pivots to web
It’s a rough time for live theater. As San Francisco arts organizations brainstorm ways to carry their message into the COVID era, some of the city’s most veteran radical...
Purpose in precarity: SF arts orgs share COVID-era gameplans
The COVID crisis has hit us all differently, and that variance certainly applies to local arts organizations. While the virus refuses to give a clear timeline for its defeat,...
Pianist Holly Mead echoes quarantine angst on new album ‘Solitary Animals’
Pianist and composer Holly Mead picked the title Solitary Animals for her fourth album months before COVID-19 spun us all into cocoons of solitude. Released July 10th on all...
Screen Grabs: Welcome to Jewish Film Fest’s online ‘Cinegogue’
Four months into the COVID crisis (with no end in sight yet), many film festivals and organizations have had time to come up with alternatives to completely canceling their...
In ‘The Niceties,’ deep-rooted academic bias vividly on display
In The Niceties, playing online from Shotgun Theater, a Black student, Zoe (Regina Monique) at an unnamed elite Northeast university (clearly Yale given it’s in Connecticut) visits her white...
Screen Grabs: Build your own silent film festival
For years the San Francisco Silent Film Festival was a July event, and this summer would have marked its 25th anniversary—but due to you-know-what, that big Castro Theatre shebang...
Screen Grabs: ’90s UK rave scene springs back to life in ‘Beats’
The SF International Film Festival that wasn’t a couple months ago—one of COVID-19’s earliest cultural casualties—would have included a 20th-anniversary screening of Greg Harrison’s Groove. That SF-set ensemble piece...
Looking for a hot gay connection? ‘Ask Any Buddy’
As titles go, Ask Any Buddy is evocative. On its surface, it brings up the idea of acquiring knowledge or answers through communication with friends. But there’s another element...
