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San Francisco Chronicle
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
We have seen better days, San Francisco
It's the midpoint of a long, cold summer, and San Franciscans are restless. San Francisco seems to have lost its edge. Now is the summer of our discontent, as Shakespeare might say. If Shakespeare were here, he'd be worried, too. The arts are in trouble, community theaters have lost their audiences, museums are closing or cutting staff, the Opera is having problems, and Esa-Pekka Salonen has left the S.F. Symphony. Even the venerable Mountain Play skipped a season on Mount Tamalpais this year for the first time in 80 years. The audience wasn't there. San Francisco's formally fabled nightlife has gone dark. The gloom is widespread: D'Arcy Drollinger, the city's Drag Laureate, plans to close Oasis, a fabled drag club. 'We've been struggling, like a lot of other venues,' he said. 'Our margins are razor-thin.' Ben Bleiman reopened Harrington's, an old school bar in the Financial District, on the theory that the city was on the rebound. 'The fact that we are breaking even is a miracle,' he said. He should know. He's the president of the city's entertainment commission. The main question now is to find someone, or some group, to blame for this situation. The current thinking is that it's the young people — Gen Z, those born starting in 1997 and mostly in their 20s now. They drink tap water and Red Bull instead of craft beer and martinis, according to experts. Or maybe it's Gen X who are to blame for ruining things. Or the millennials, born after 1980, the children of Baby Boomers. They are old enough now to know better. One thing is clear: San Francisco is not what it was. It's those new people. They don't understand. My father used to talk that way, too. He used to say San Francisco was a lot better years ago — it was a golden age, he said. It was only later that I realized it wasn't a golden age for San Francisco so much as it was a golden age for him. It was like what they said about Lefty O'Doul: He was here at a good time, and he had a good time when he was here. You don't know Lefty O'Doul? You must be new in town. I was thinking of those times one day last week when I rode the 1-California bus from an appointment out in the Richmond heading downtown. Through the Western Addition, down California Street, switched to Sacramento Street, over Nob Hill, through Chinatown to Portsmouth Square, through the oldest part of the city. It was remarkably unchanged; the buildings looked the same, and the city had that hard-to-define San Francisco feel, as if something interesting might happen at any time. The city is full of high tech and AI is next, but on Kearny Street near Sacramento, two women were making dumplings by hand in a restaurant window. Enough of the familiar San Francisco. I thought. So I headed south, south of Market, south of the ballpark, to Mission Bay. It's a new city down there, all square glass buildings, not a breath of the old city. I am reminded again of the story Herb Caen told about the San Franciscan who died and went to heaven. 'It's nice,' he said. 'But it's not San Francisco.' I had lunch at Thrive City and watched a lunch hour exercise class, men and women stretching, bending, reaching for the sky outdoors in the plaza. Not the graceful tai chi programs you see at Washington Square in North Beach. Something new. Crowds of people, much younger than the usual city crowd, streamed by. The area around Chase Center is full of new restaurants, new parks and new people. Only a few years ago, this area on the edge of the bay was derelict, like the seacoast of nowhere — the railroad yard was empty, the ships had sailed, and weeds grew wild. A few remnants remain, including a dock where barges carrying freight cars tied up, like an artifact from the industrial past. Next to that is the clubhouse of the Bay View Boat Club, where salty San Franciscans come to drink beer and tell stories about the good times. Lady Gaga played Chase Center that night. A sold-out crowd. She had a show people wanted to see. Maybe all is not lost. So maybe this is the future of San Francisco, a mix of an older city and the new one. All glass and clean living mixed in with the city and a lifestyle we all came to admire. That's the way of cities: Tastes change. The best of the past survives, but something better usually comes along. Old-timers remember the scent of roasting coffee on the Embarcadero, but Hills Bros. could not compete with Starbucks. Maybe Gen Alpha — the only generation to live entirely in the 21st century — will adopt the philosophy of Marine Gen. O.P. Smith, a graduate of UC Berkeley. When asked whether his troops were retreating, he said: 'Retreat, hell! We're just attacking in another direction.'
CBS News
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Mountain Play theater group on Mount Tamalpais struggles to stay afloat
A long-running and unusual theater tradition in the North Bay is in jeopardy of coming to an end due to budget challenges. Like many performing arts groups across the country, organizers at Mountain Play are struggling to increase attendance numbers. Whenever Mountain Play Executive Director Eileen Grady visits the Cushing Memorial Theatre atop Mount Tamalpais, it's a walk down memory lane. The venue has entertained generations, hosting musicals and plays for over a century. "It goes back to our core experience as humans gathering in caves for storytelling," said Grady. Rows of stones, enough to seat 4,000 people, were installed in the 1930s. The outdoor theater has spectacular views of San Francisco Bay on clearer days. "The architect was Emerson Knight, modeling the theater to Greek and Roman amphitheaters of old," said Grady. Hikers and theatre lovers first trekked up the mountain to watch the first play, "Abraham and Issac," back in 1913. It's been an annual tradition ever since. "There's something very communal about this space. And you know, you can kind of feel the mountain talking to you sometimes," said Grady. But Grady says COVID disruptions, years of changing patterns of entertainment, including the rise of streaming, and rising costs to fund full productions, have forced Mountain Play to go on hiatus. "Every arts organization is having concerns. Is this the end?" asked Grady. What's on the line is a tradition of more than a century of theatrical performances in an iconic outdoor setting. Actress Susan Zelinsky has performed in eleven Mountain Play productions. "You're on stage and there's no fourth wall. There's no curtain, right? There's no camera. It's a sea of people that you're connecting with right in the moment," said Zelinsky. But it's not just entertainment in the spring that organizers are fearful of losing. It's that communal aspect of connecting at a deeper level supporters of Mountain Play are hoping to save. "I'll talk to people sometimes and they say, 'My family used to bring me all the time when I was a little.' 'Oh yeah, I forgot about the Mountain Play. We should go up there.' We just need to get that back into people's minds so that they get excited about it as much as they were when they were little kids," said Zelinsky. "Bringing the community together. I think we need that more than ever, and arts, and the outdoors are great ways to do that," said Grady. Grady isn't sure how to save 112 years of tradition. They're organizing to raise funds , hoping they won't have to walk away after building a firm foundation of history, culture, and community. A longtime supporter is offering to match any donation up to $100,000. Mountain Play will also host a fundraising event in June.
