San Francisco Playhouse Blog

Community is a word we see bandied about a lot these days. It is used to sell products, memberships in organizations promising belonging while asking for money, and loyalty to the home team or the home religion. Community is much in demand and difficult for us to feel. When faith in government, local or federal …

Working for many years as a set designer, I have never imagined that scenic art could be the villain of a story. But watching The Play That Goes Wrong has made us all aware that the environment on stage can be the primary antagonist. Boobytraps lie in wait for every character, and the more wary …

San Francisco Playhouse will serve up a holiday treat with the beloved Broadway favorite Waitress, directed by San Francisco Playhouse Producing Director and co-founder Susi Damilano with music direction by Dave Dobrusky and choreography by Nicole Helfer. Featuring a tasty, tuneful score by Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles and a fresh-baked book by Jessie Nelson, …

At a recent performance of Evita, our fabulous turntable hiccupped, stuttered, staggered and stopped. It failed, of course, at the very moment when it was needed to deliver the “lover’s bed/speaker’s podium” unit to the stage so it could serve as the anchor for the seven minutes of “A New Argentina” to close Act I. …

Why do we laugh at a farce? Because otherwise we would have to cry. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge put it, “Farce is nearer tragedy than comedy is.” Oscar Wilde said, “Life is terribly deficient in form. Its catastrophes happen in the wrong way and to the wrong people. There is a grotesque horror about its …