In case you’ve avoided the news cycle, the performing arts are in an unprecedented funding crisis. The U.S. government is slowly dismantling the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, which have canceled millions of dollars in already-awarded grants across the country — including several nonprofits on this very summer theater preview.
This means the support of your favorite organizations is more crucial than ever. What better way to support than to simply show up? Get thee to a cabaret, a salon, or a summer musical. Buy a ticket, buy a drink, make the scene and make a difference.
Here are 12 ways to avail yourself of theater’s transformative potential all summer long.
(L–R) The ‘Co-Founders’ creative team of Beau Lewis, Adesha Adefela, and RyanNicole Austin. (Michaela Schulz)
The Bay Area-borne, Rhyme Combinator-conceived hip-hop musical Co-Founders has its world premiere at last. Taking audience immersion to the next level, this “tech-savvy” production promises next-level design elements, powerhouse local performers, and an of-the-moment tale of a Black woman’s attempt to break into the upper echelons of Silicon Valley without losing her soul (and her home). This show’s been a long time in the making, and it’s ready to make some noise.
Sasha Velour in ‘The Big Reveal Live Show,’ running at Berkeley Rep June 4–15. (Greg Endries)
The incomparable Sasha Velour, drag queen of 1,000 rose petals and winner of Season 9 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, comes back to her former hometown at Berkeley Rep with a revival of The Big Reveal Live Show. A showcase for Velour’s big ideas and even bigger drag, The Big Reveal offers a fabulous window into the creative landscape of one of drag’s most innovative performers. Sumptuous, playful, and profound.
(L–R) Jeremy Julian Greco, Tony Cyprien and Scott Cohen. (Courtesy Sunset Solos)
Ongoing; third Sunday of each month Sealevel, San Francisco
Since January 2024, a monthly solo performance showcase has been underway at Sealevel, a gallery and community space in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset. The brainchild of seasoned performer and producer Jeremy Julian Greco, this intimate, low-tech series brings some of the Bay Area’s best solo artists to a venue so close to the ocean you can smell the salt tang in the air. A flourishing testament to the arts’ ability to take root and bloom wherever it may be planted, Sunset Solos’ summer performers include Scott Cohen and Tony Cyprien, with more to be announced.
New York Police officers outside the Altoona Police Department, where Luigi Mangione was taken into police custody, on Dec. 9, 2024, in Altoona, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
June 13-28; more dates TBA Taylor Street Theater, San Francisco
If I’m being honest, when I first heard about Luigi: the Musical, I wondered if perhaps it was a little too soon. Especially since there are apparently two unrelated Luigi Mangione musicals in the works, one here and one in Austin, Texas. But rather than a sympathetic portrait or ill-timed SNL-style skit, this 60-minute musical satire imagines three notorious inmates — Mangione, the accused shooter of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson; accused sex trafficker Sean “Diddy” Combs; and convicted cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried — in a cell together, representing the worst manifestations of individualism and fracturing societal norms. Also, songs. Its initial run at Taylor Street Theatre is already sold out, so watch for new dates to be announced.
Written for and first performed by the extraordinary Lily Tomlin in 1985, Jane Wagner’s The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe remains a skillful and relevant commentary on creativity, society and the human condition as experienced by a multi-generational collection of misfits, middle Americans, and muses. Aurora Theatre’s production stars Bay Area comedy performance legend Marga Gomez, poised to guide us — and some curious visitors from outer space — through a world where soup is art, art is soup, and the search for intelligence is a truly universal concern.
July 11-27 Oakland Theater Project at FLAX, Oakland
In 1961, the prominent playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry penned a thoughtful takedown of Jean Genet’s The Blacks for the Village Voice. She worked on a theatrical response as well — her posthumously produced Les Blancs. Set on the African continent, this seldom-performed play tackles the deep wounds of colonialism, and the right of indigenous people everywhere for self-determination and freedom from oppression and exploitation.
Torange Yeghiazarian, the founding artistic director of Golden Thread Productions. (Navid G. Maghami)
July 15-Aug. 3 514 Fourth Street Theater, San Rafael
Something artistic this way comes. Marin Shakespeare Company and Play On Shakespeare team up for this festival of works-in-progress that reimagine classics into theatrical expressions of the now. Mostly Shakespeare-inspired — with Chekov and 12th century Persia in the mix — the six featured plays riff on themes of love, identity, power, motherhood and AI. A feast of local talent and fervent ideas.
Grace Margaret Craig in ‘Ride the Cyclone’ at the New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco. (Jenni Chapman/Courtesy NCTC)
July 11-Aug. 15 New Conservatory Theatre Center, San Francisco
If jukebox musicals have a “season,” surely it’s summer, when long days and languid nights seem to demand lighter, more joyous fare. City Lights Theater Company’s production of Head Over Heels — a jukebox musical featuring the greatest hits of the Go-Go’s — can fill that need. A less-than idyllic romp through ancient Arcadia, punctuated by songs such as “We Got the Beat,” “Our Lips are Sealed” and “Vacation,” Head Over Heels takes on gender, love and destiny with poppy aplomb. For fun-loving levity with original songs made popular on TikTok, New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco brings back their well received and raucous production of teenage afterlife musical Ride the Cyclone.
Circus Bella performs at the 25th Yerba Buena Gardens Festival on June 20 and 21. (Emil Alex)
