San Francisco Mime Troupe

San Francisco Mime Troupe

Formation	1959
Type	Theatre group
Purpose	Comedy Political satire Melodrama
Location	San Francisco, California, United States
Notable members	Peter Coyote Saul Landau Bill Graham
Website	www.sfmt.org

The San Francisco Mime Troupe is a theatre of political satire which performs free shows in various parks in the San Francisco Bay Area and around California. The troupe does not, however, perform silent mime, but each year creates an original musical comedy that combines aspects of commedia dell'arte, melodrama, and broad farce with topical political themes. The group was awarded the Regional Theatre Award at the 41st Tony Awards.

Origins

The group was founded in 1959 by R. G. Davis as a medium of expression of his divergent theatrical concepts.^[1] The group debuted on October 29, 1959, with Games—3 Sets, and two other plays.^[1] By 1961, the group transitioned to the commedia dell'arte format to more thoroughly comment on perceived political repression in the United States, the growing civil rights movement and military and covert intervention abroad.^[2]

In the mid-1960s the group started to rely less on the direct commedia dell'arte format and transitioned into having an objective of "teaching, directing towards change and to be an example of change".^[3] It also began integrating elements of jazz into its musical composition, eventually leading to the inclusion of a jazz band within the troupe. Their first outdoor performance was in May 1962 at Golden Gate Park.^[4] The group also gained notoriety for its numerous altercations with law enforcement, which resulted in performing at benefits to raise money for legal fees.^[5] In 1967, a benefit called "Appeal IV" featured the bands; the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Moby Grape.^[6]

They also traveled to Canada and played at Simon Fraser University in 1966 with A Minstrel Show or Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel by Gary Davis and Saul Landau.^[7]

The music for Minstrel Show was composed and performed by Steve Reich, who worked with the troupe for at least two seasons. The troupe has always been known to employ the best composers and musicians in the area, who work intimately with the actors, writers, and whole theatrical operation.^[8] By the early 1970s, the troupe had earned a reputation for opposing capitalism, sexism, and war.^[8]

Post-Davis history

In the early 1970s Davis left the troupe when it re-formed as a collective, the members of which operate as the artistic director, at which time the troupe produced one of its most successful shows, The Independent Female (1970). In the 1980s, the group's productions retaliated against the Reagan administration.

As well as the park-based shows, the Mime Troupe also tours nationally and internationally, having performed throughout Europe, Asia, South and Central America.^[9] The group also facilitates community workshops. They are a nonprofit organization. The season traditionally starts on Fourth of July weekend and ends on Labor Day weekend.^[9]

Notable members include: Saul Landau,^[10] Nina Serrano,^[10] Steve Reich,^[11] John Connell,^[12] William T. Wiley,^[13] Wally Hedrick,^[14] Victoria Hochberg,^[15] John Broderick,^[16] Peter Coyote,^[9] Luis Valdez,^[16] Barry Shabaka Henley,^[17] Bruce Barthol,^[18] Joan Mankin,^[16] Emmett Grogan,^[19] Bill Graham,^[9] and Ed Holmes.^[16]

Posters for several of the 1970s productions were designed by Jane Norling, and are accessible online.^[20]

Awards

The Troupe has won three OBIEs,^[21] and in 1987, the troupe's Brechtian style of guerrilla theatre earned them a special Tony Award for Excellence in Regional Theater.^[22] Red State, the troupe's 2008 fable about a small Midwest town that, after years of being ignored, demands accountability for their tax dollars, was nominated for a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best New Script, as was their 2009 production, Too Big to Fail, which detailed how credit and the philosophy of profit at all costs trap mesmerized citizens in a cycle of debt, while endlessly enriching the capitalists who cast the spell.^[21]

Productions

1950s & 1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

• 2020: Tales of the Resistance: Volume 1^[note 1]
• 2021: Tales of the Resistance: Volume 2^[note 1]
• 2022: Back to the Way Things Were
• 2023: Breakdown^[34]

Albums

• 1972: Fillmore – The Last Days^[35]
• 1983: The Album^[36]
• 1984: Steel Town^[37]

See also

• Living Theater
• Bread & Puppet
• Teatro Campesino
• Political drama
• St. Stupid's Day
• Beach Blanket Babylon

Notes

References

Sources

• Davis, R.G. (1975). The San Francisco Mime Troupe: The First Ten Years. Palo Alto, CA: Ramparts Press. ISBN 0-87867-059-9.

Further reading

• Doyle, Michael William (2002). "Staging the Revolution: Guerrilla Theater as a Countercultural Practice, 1965-1968". Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and '70s. New York: Routledge.
• Mason, Susan Vaneta (2005). The San Francisco Mime Troupe Reader. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-09842-X.
• Orenstein, Claudia (1998). Festive Revolutions: The Politics of Popular Theater and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-079-6.
• Schechter, Joel (1985). Durov's Pig: Clowns, Politics, and the Theatre. Theatre Communications Group. ISBN 978-0-930452-51-3.
• Shank, Theodore (2002). Beyond the Boundaries: American Alternative Theatre. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-11166-4.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to San Francisco Mime Troupe.

• The San Francisco Mime Troupe official website
• San Francisco Mime Troupe at the Internet Broadway Database
• San Francisco Mime Troupe Archives at Special Collections, University Library, University of California,

This page was last edited on 11 January 2024, at 22:38