From burlesque to Broadway, San Francisco’s queer theater scene has it all
The American Conservatory Theater, Magic Theatre, The San Francisco Playhouse, Custom Made Theatre, and Broadway SF.But for exclusively — and often eccentrically — queer theater, here are a few of our favorite troupes for your next San Francisco trip.Producing one of the city’s most robust calendars of productions, NCTC inhabits an entire city block in Hayes Valley with its own state-of-the-art three-stage complex.
The company presents six to seven shows, most of which run for a month or longer, between September and June every year. Offerings range from the southern fried camp of Del Shores (Sordid Lives) and musicals (Fun Home) to regional premieres by prominent playwrights including Terrence McNally and Harvey Fierstein.
Since 2002, the NCTC’s New Voices/New Work program has commissioned and developed more than 40 world premieres, including work by Jewelle Gomez and the stage adaptation of Scott Heim’s cult novel Mysterious Skin.As the world’s longest-running queer theater, The Rhino has been a hard-charging advocate of representation on stage for almost a half-century.
From its 1977 debut production, mounted in a leather bar, the company has performed in a variety of venues around the city. In 1984, Theatre Rhinoceros commissioned The AIDS Show: Artists Involved with Death and Survival, the first professional theater piece to address the epidemic, later the subject of a PBS documentary.
