I’m standing outside Club Fugazi — home to San Francisco’s iconic musical revue Beach Blanket Babylon — an hour before showtime, and already there are dozens of people lined up to see one of the last performances. The entire block buzzes with chatter and laughter despite the gloomy skies and occasional drizzle. Standing in line, I get the feeling that the ticket holders could hardly believe their luck.
After the show’s 45-year run, producer Jo Schuman Silver announced in April that Beach Blanket Babylon’s final curtain call would take place on December 31. Not long after that announcement, the show sold out for the rest of the year. Of course, iconic San Francisco locales closing is nothing new. For years, small business owners have been forced to shutter due to steeply rising rent prices, restrictive permit processes, and constant digital disruptions. What’s not so common today is businesses closing by choice out of a desire to bid adieu while they’re still at the top. But according to producer Jo Schuman Silver, her desire to preserve artistic integrity is what’s driving her to end the show.
“The show was so beloved that we just had to keep it going. And we did — we did it just like Steve had done it.”
What would become the longest-running musical revue in the world started as a series of jam sessions between Beach Blanket Babylon founder Steve Silver and his friends in a Volkswagen van in the mid-1970s. After some success busking on the streets of San Francisco, Silver and company set up shop in a couple of different restaurants and bars before finding a permanent home in Club Fugazi. Although they were initially booked for a six-week run, audiences couldn’t get enough of the revue, which married cultural icons from the past several decades (think: Carmen Miranda and Mr. Peanut) with topical skits, popular music, and over-the-top costumes and sets. The show’s continued success resulted in extensions, and eventually, Beach Blanket Babylon settled there for good.
The show continued to thrive under Silver’s leadership, with its notoriety increasing over the years. Notable moments included a guest appearance from Annette Funicello — the star of the original “Beach Blanket” movies that Silver drew inspiration from — and a performance in front of Queen Elizabeth II. But in 1995, the show and all the people involved with it were dealt a blow when Silver died of complications resulting from AIDS.
Silver’s wife — the aforementioned Jo Schuman Silver — took over the reins almost immediately. “The day after he passed on, I called the whole cast and said, ‘Okay, let’s go,’” Schuman Silver told me. “The show was so beloved that we just had to keep it going. And we did — we did it just like Steve had done it.”
In the years since, the show has cemented its status as a San Francisco institution. There have been upwards of 17,000 shows performed in front of 6.5 million guests. Beach Blanket Babylon has toured internationally, received press in news outlets around the world, and been named a San Francisco must-see in countless tourist guides.
When I asked Schuman Silver if she ever envisioned world domination when she first took over, she replied, “No, I never even thought about it.” Speaking on the phone with her, I could practically see her dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand.
But Schuman Silver always knew that the show couldn’t go on forever.
“[Steve] told me I would know when it was the right time, and about three years ago, I just said that the show is not going to get any better because it’s really at the top of its game,” she said. “I wanted the show to go out on top, and it is.”
Talking to my compatriots in line outside the theater, I learned that Beach Blanket Babylon is the kind of show that’s hard to stay away from once you’ve seen it. I speak with more than 20 people, but only three are first-timers.
Several cite the show’s topical format as the reason why they keep coming back. Over the years, Beach Blanket Babylon has poked fun at everything from the Monica Lewinsky scandal to Kim Kardashian’s internet-breaking Paper Magazine cover to the construction of Salesforce Tower. But others offer personal reasons as to why Beach Blanket Babylon means so much to them.
One woman, who’s come to the show as part of an outing organized by the senior center where she lives, tells me that she appreciates the diversity of the cast, “which is very reflective of the San Francisco Bay Area” — and something that can be hard to find in theater.
Another attendee, Jody, highlights the impact that Beach Blanket Babylon has had on the queer community: “I think [Beach Blanket Babylon] carries some of our stories and our values in it, and it presents it to a larger community than a drag show,” she says.
Jody has come to Club Fugazi with a group of her friends, all of them involved in the queer arts scene. When one of them, Cynthi, hears that I’ve never attended the show, she thrusts a pair of pink tickets in my hand.
“There,” she says. “I have two extra. You have to go see it.”
“Oh my God, thank you,” I stammer, dumbstruck by her kindness.
I enter the theater eager to find out why the show has become such a sensation. What follows is 90 minutes of frenetic theater magic. The main plot involves Snow White on a quest to find her (proverbial) Prince Charming. Admittedly, the story is pretty thin and, at times, illogical. One moment, Snow White inexplicably runs into the Clintons for no apparent reason while in Rome.
But it’s clear early on that you don’t go to Beach Blanket Babylon for the plot. You go for the music, a blend of original compositions and various covers of hits from the past several decades, belted out by some of the most soulful and talented singers you’ve ever heard. You go for the elaborate drag-inspired costumes, makeup, and neon pink wigs; although Schuman Silver will later insist that there’s no drag influence in the show — “it’s too clever to be camp,” she tells me. You go to witness a world in which a Kamala Harris character dances onstage, backed by storm troopers, the Pope, Miley Cyrus, and an overbearing Jewish mother, and it all makes perfect sense. You go for the nonstop jokes, which hit you at a frantic pace and skewer everything from celebrities to pop culture to politicians.
“I see us becoming a very rich society that doesn’t have room or time for something wacky and fun and ridiculous like ‘Beach Blanket.’”
While the show is undoubtedly satirical, it’s largely nonpartisan. A caricature of Nancy Pelosi is just as likely to appear as one of Donald Trump — accompanied, of course, by Sound of Music-esque versions of his children, called the Von Trump family singers.
“One of the things that we like to say is, we don’t make fun of; we have fun with these characters that we put onstage,” longtime stage manager John Camajani tells me. “We have fun with everybody. It’s not necessarily pointed.”
I think back to what one man waiting outside the theater told me: his wife’s “aunt from Louisiana, right above the Bible Belt, can come see this and think ‘Ooh, that’s fun!’ It doesn’t upset anyone.”
At the end of the performance, because this is a holiday show, there’s a tacked-on sketch with tap-dancing Christmas trees singing renditions of holiday classics. As the cast takes a bow, the applause is overwhelming. Nearly everyone in the theater rises to their feet.
“It was like the beautiful fever dream of a drag queen who fell asleep watching ‘I Love the 2010s’ on Christmas Eve,” I whisper to the friend who ended up joining me at the last minute.
While the elation the audience felt throughout the night is undeniable, there is also a sense of mourning. As we exit the theater, I hear snippets of conversations involving the show’s impending closure.
“Such a shame she didn’t sell it!”
“Well, at least the kids got to see it before it ended.”
“I wonder what the actors are going to do?”
Earlier in the evening, Karina Cerri, a repeat visitor, lamented to me, “I was born and raised in the city, and everything’s changing here,” she said. “It was a staple.”
The audience members aren’t the only ones wondering what happens next. Curt Branom, one of the leads whose many roles include the flamboyant King Louie, is preparing to move on after 25 years. While he’ll have plenty to keep him busy in the near future, including teaching opera at the American Conservatory Theater and running his after-school performing-arts nonprofit, Branom worries about the future of San Francisco theater.
“I do worry that the arts are being superseded and engulfed by technology,” Branom tells me. “I just think theater is so necessary to us as a civilization… I see us losing the fun. I see us losing the creativity. I see us becoming a very rich society that doesn’t have room or time for something wacky and fun and ridiculous like ‘Beach Blanket.’”
Still, Branom can’t bring himself to feel angry or resentful.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been through [having] anybody in hospice where there’s nothing left to do,” he says. “I’ve been through that quite a bit, and I’ve realized there’s a moment in that process where you [have to] decide. How do you want to take the situation on? Do you want to be angry? Or do you want to embrace it, say thank you for what this place has brought to you and your life, and acknowledge what was great?”
