In a sleeveless patterned sundress, incongruously set off by a pair of heavy-duty hiking boots, Carey Perloff enthusiastically guided a contingent of hard-hatted journalists through the emerging reality of the revamped Strand Theater. Right now, it's mostly scaffolding and concrete outlines, but you can see what ACT's audacious undertaking amid the long-blighted Mid-Market corridor will look like. Perloff, ACT's artistic director, is famous for her contagious enthusiasms, and it's easy to get swept up in her glowing predictions. But now there is the physical evidence to support the vision.
"This was the Great White Way of San Francisco," Perloff said of Market Street, "and then it all went away." The Strand was one of the many movie houses that studded the thoroughfare with such names as the Embassy, the Fox, the Imperial, the Egyptian, the St. Francis, the Pompeii, the Esquire, and the Granada. Although it was never considered one of the city's more magnificent movie houses, the theater that opened as the Jewel in 1917 survived longer than any of the above. True, by the time it closed after police raids in 2003 after 86 years of operation, it was a porn house, but its state of suspended animation since then provided the theatrical skeleton for ACT's $33.3 million project.
With about 87% of that amount already raised through individual, corporate, and foundation grants, the project has also benefited from both federal and regional tax credits, low-interest loans, and the mayor's blessings. While fundraising continues, the first production at the revamped Strand is set, with Caryl Churchill's Love and Information to open in the spring as part of ACT's subscription series that otherwise takes place at the Geary Theater.
"For a theater this small, it has a spacious stage and a high ceiling," Perloff said. "For the unreinforced human voice, it will be wonderful. It's a particularly good space for dance. We wanted to create a space that is welcoming to many arts disciplines from many different arts organizations." It will provide a regular home for MFA productions coming out of ACT's student program.
The original configuration of the Strand was long and narrow, with the balcony stretching back far from the stage. "It was a little creepy," Perloff said. "We have bifurcated the space, and that gives us another space for performances and meetings on the second level, where the rear of the balcony used to be." Originally seating 800, the new auditorium will seat 220 to 285, depending on whether it's in a theatrical or cabaret configuration.
Its not being on a local or national historic register allowed architects from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP to radically alter the building, which will now include a mostly glass front wall with views of City Hall, though the original facade is being maintained on the upper levels of the building. A large LED screen, visible from the street, will become the back wall of a lobby that will be equipped with a cafe open during the day and at performances, and decorated with the letters that spelled Strand on the former marquee.
"Just because this is smaller than the Geary doesn't mean that the Strand will only be for smaller or experimental works," said Perloff, with classics possibly showing up at times at the Strand while the new and the different may wind up at the Geary. But the vibe will be different.
"In the Geary, we have a Cadillac theater," Perloff said, "and when we rebuilt it after the 1989 earthquake, we made sure it had the newest technology. So we already have that. The Strand is about intimacy and keeping it simple."
Rhino's new season
Theatre Rhinoceros will open its 2014-15 season with a new musical about a subject that doesn't immediately suggest musicalization. But then again, The Battle of Midway: Live! Onstage! comes from the pen of Rhino Artistic Director John Fisher, who first made a commercial splash in 1994 with Medea: The Musical. Co-authored with Don Seaver, the story of the famous World War II naval battle serves as the basis for the "queer-camp musical comedy" to run Nov. 14-30 at ACT's Costume Shop.
Following a New Year's Eve performance of Shopping: The Musical at the Eureka Theatre, Rhino's season will continue with David Mamet's The Anarchist on Jan. 2-17, also at the Eureka. The verbal pas de deux between a lesbian anarchist and the parole officer with the power to release her was seen on Broadway in 2012 with Patti LuPone and Debra Winger as prisoner and officer.
The season continues with the story of Alan Turing, a hero in British intelligence during WWII who became a victim of draconian anti-homosexuality laws in the early 1950s. Hugh Blakemore's 1986 play Breaking the Code will run March 4-22 at the Eureka.
In 1998, Fisher staged a sprawling production of Titus! in Yerba Buena Gardens. It was an over-the-top sendup of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, and he'll return to the park for a musical interpretation of another of Shakespeare's more troublesome plays. Timon! The Musical!, adapted from Timon of Athens, about a foolish philanthropist and his greedy minions, will have an outdoor run May 29-31.
Subscription tickets for the five-show series are $105-$125, and are available at 552-4100 or at therhino.org.