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The culture of San Francisco is major and diverse in terms of arts, music, cuisine, festivals, museums, and architecture but also is influenced heavily by Mexican culture due to its large Hispanic population, and its history as part of Spanish America and Mexico. San Francisco's diversity of cultures along with its eccentricities are so great that they have greatly influenced the country and the world at large over the years. In 2012, Bloomberg Businessweek voted San Francisco as America's Best City. [1]
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) contains 20th Century and contemporary pieces. It moved to its building in South of Market in 1995 and attracts 600,000 visitors annually. [2] The California Palace of the Legion of Honor contains primarily European works. The De Young Museum and the Asian Art Museum have significant anthropological and non-European holdings.
The Palace of Fine Arts, a remnant of the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, used to house the Exploratorium, a popular science museum dedicated to teaching through hands-on interaction, which moved to a new location on the Embarcadero in 2013. The California Academy of Sciences is a natural history museum and hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has one of the most comprehensive collections of Asian art in the world.[ citation needed ] From 1958 until 2003 the collection was housed in a wing of at the original de Young in Golden Gate Park. When the de Young closed while constructing a new building, the Asian Art Museum moved to the former San Francisco City Library building, which was renovated for the purpose under the direction of Italian architect Gae Aulenti who had previously overseen the conversion of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
The San Francisco Zoo cares for a total of about 250 animal species, 39 of which have been deemed endangered or threatened. [3]
Other museums include the Museum of the African Diaspora, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, the Museum of Craft & Folk Art, the Cartoon Art Museum, and the Mexican Museum. Some "offbeat" museums and galleries dealing in unconventional topics include the Antique Vibrator Museum, the Musée Mécanique (dedicated to penny arcade machines), the Museum of Ophthalmology, Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, the Stamp Francisco/Stamp Art Gallery (rubber stamps not postal stamps), the Tattoo Art Museum (old tattoo machines and instruments), the UFO, Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster Museum, and the Wax Museum at Fisherman's Wharf.
Classical and Opera venues in San Francisco include the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet. They all perform at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center. San Francisco's Ballet and Opera are some of the oldest continuing performing arts companies in the United States. San Francisco is the birthplace and home city of the vocal ensemble Chanticleer. The city is also home to the American Conservatory Theater, also known as A.C.T., which has been routinely staging original productions since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967. Additionally, the New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) is known for being an intimate theater that routinely stages original productions by the local, national, and international LGBTQIA+ community. Hundreds of smaller, alternative theatres also attract a significant portion of the audience given their historical role in the San Francisco performing arts culture. The oldest of these are Intersection for the Arts, founded in 1965, and the Magic Theatre, founded in 1967. A major player in the promotion of theater in the Bay Area is Theatre Bay Area (or TBA). A non profit organization, Theatre Bay Area has members from more than 365 Bay Area theatre and dance companies, is the publisher of Callboard Magazine, and runs San Francisco's Half-Priced Ticket Booth.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974. Bimbo's 365 Club, in North Beach, is one of the city's oldest entertainment venues and plays host to music shows of all genres. Most nightclubs in San Francisco are exclusive to audiences age 21 and older; the two most prominent nightclubs in the city which are open to ages 18 and older are 715 Harrison (known locally by its two event names Club X and City Nights) as well as DNA Lounge. [4] [5] Nightlife venues occasionally have a strong affiliation with a certain theme or culture, such as 1015 Folsom, which has a history with BDSM culture, [6] or Temple, noted for its futurism and energy-generating dance floor. [7]
Additionally, San Francisco is home to the 200-member San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, the world's first openly gay chorus, as well as the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band. Two additional gay choruses, the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco and Golden Gate Men's Chorus, [8] also perform throughout the year.
San Francisco has a large number of theaters and live performance venues. Local theater companies have been noted for risk taking and innovation, [9] as documented in the film Stage Left: A Story of Theater in San Francisco . The Tony Award-winning non-profit American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) is a member of the national League of Resident Theatres, and has been in San Francisco since it moved from Pittsburgh in 1967. Other local winners of the Regional Theatre Tony Award include the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and Berkeley Rep in nearby Berkeley. [10] The Magic Theatre was the home theater of the playwright Sam Shepard during his most productive period, and many of his plays were first staged there. San Francisco-based SHN hosts productions of Broadway shows in its vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District: the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
San Francisco has had a thriving improv theatre community, with a distinctly different style of improv than much of the rest of the country[ citation needed ]. Unlike Chicago where one venue will host three 30-45 minute shows in one evening, most San Francisco improv shows are 2 hours long, complete with their own intermission. And while Chicago and New York are full of improv companies who perform formats based on the Harold (with multiple storylines going on at the same time), San Francisco is full of improv shows with single-story formats. Often referred to as play-length improv shows, these improv shows are rooted in the idea that if someone can perform something scripted (like a play, movie, or musical) then it can also be improvised just as well. Some groups that define the improvisation scene in San Francisco are: BATS Improv, The Un-Scripted Theater Company, and The San Francisco Improv Alliance.
San Francisco theaters frequently host pre-Broadway engagements and tryout runs, [11] and some original San Francisco productions have later moved to Broadway. [12] Plays and productions that have been staged in San Francisco (or nearby) prior to their Broadway productions include the following:
San Francisco has often hosted influential rock music trends, starting with the San Francisco Sound during the 1960s. Two of the most influential bands from that era, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, started out in San Francisco in 1965. Other groups include rockers Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, soft rock band Pablo Cruise and Journey, seminal punk band the Dead Kennedys, and alternative metal band Faith No More. It is the birthplace of thrash metal with bands such as Metallica, Testament, Exodus, Slayer, Death Angel, Megadeth and latterly Machine Head. San Francisco has had significant influence on punk rock in California since the late 1970s. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it was somewhat influential in rave and electronica. Activity in the Goth/industrial scene has been continuous in the city since then, with it being home to the world's second longest running goth club after Slimelight in London, England. Gentrification during the late 1990s is said to have forced many performers to move away.[ citation needed ] However, San Francisco is still home to a number of respected music acts, such as Chuck Prophet, Lords of Sealand and John Vanderslice, and especially in the Fillmore and Hunters Point districts, San Francisco is the home of numerous rappers, including Messy Marv, RBL Posse, Rappin' 4-Tay, HughEMC, San Quinn, Andre Nickatina, Big Rich, JT the Bigga Figga, Ant Rich 415, and Paris. San Francisco DJs and electronic musicians are credited with defining the laid-back, dub-influenced sound of the West Coast house music.[ citation needed ] Prominent DJs and artists include Kaskade, Miguel Migs, Mark Farina, and DJ Garth. Dub Mission is among the city's regular music parties. Since 2000 San Francisco has hosted the How Weird Street Faire, claimed to be the longest-running electronic music street festival in North America.
Famous songs about San Francisco include Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", the Scott McKenzie song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)", People Under The Stairs' "San Francisco Knights", Chris Isaak's "San Francisco Days", Journey's "Lights", "Fake Tales of San Francisco" by the Arctic Monkeys, and "Save Me, San Francisco" by Train.
Comedian and actor, Robin Williams helped San Francisco become recognized as a good town for comedy clubs. He rose to fame, having gotten his early start in San Francisco clubs such as the Holy City Zoo, the Punchline and The Other Café in the '70's. [60] He also shot seven films on location in San Francisco. [60]
The city is the birthplace of the local variety of sourdough bread, the Mission burrito, and steam beer. Fisherman's Wharf has served local specialty Dungeness crab for decades. Food companies include Anchor Brewing Company, Boudin Bakery, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company. Famous past and present restaurants include the Tonga Room, Fleur de Lys, Greens, Original Joe's, Stars, Vesuvio Cafe and the Top of the Mark. California Cuisine and fusion cuisine are prominent in the city. Food trucks are a source of ethnically diverse, and gourmet street foods, with concentrations of various trucks at regular times and places. [61] [62] Notable grocery stores, which often focus on locally-grown organic produce, include the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative and Bi-Rite Market. Johnny Kan opened one of the first modern Chinese restaurants, in Chinatown in 1953.
San Francisco is home to many different and unique street festivals, parties and parades. Most famous are its gay pride parade, held every June; the Folsom Street Fair held every September; Chinese New Year Parade held in February; Carnaval, held during the spring; Litquake and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in October. It used to host a North American version of the Loveparade electronic music festival (later known as the "Lovefest" and "LoveEvolution"), held in late summer/early fall, until city officials revoked the event's permits due to safety concerns in 2009. [63] Since 2000 San Francisco has hosted the How Weird Street Faire, claimed to be the longest-running electronic music street festival in North America. Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in the city is the largest independently owned music festival in the United States. San Francisco is also home to running races such as the Bay to Breakers and the San Francisco Marathon. During Labor Day weekend in 2008, the city played host to the first Slow Food Nation, the first major public event for Slow Food USA and one of the largest food events in the nation.
Many neighborhoods in San Francisco have annual street festivals featuring live music, arts and crafts vendors, and community organizations. Among the largest of these are Castro Street Fair , Union Street Art Festival, North Beach Festival, and Haight-Ashbury Street Fair. The San Francisco Opera company puts on an annual free Opera in the Park performance in Golden Gate Park. The San Francisco Symphony does likewise on several dates in July, including one as part of the Stern Grove Festival. On the Fourth of July holiday, there are fireworks shows over Fisherman's Wharf and Marina Green. Another fireworks show is held every May as part of the KFOG: Kaboom!.
San Francisco contains a plethora of unique architecture that serve as tourist attractions in their own right. They include its Civic Center, Coit Tower atop Telegraph Hill, the Ferry Building on its waterfront, the world-renowned Golden Gate Bridge, the twisty and windy Lombard Street in Russian Hill, "Painted Ladies", terraced victorian houses that can be found citywide, the San Francisco cable car system, the abstract San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, the ruins of the once great Sutro Baths, Chinatown, and the Transamerica Pyramid.
San Francisco has long been home to many different ethnicities and nationalities from around the world as well as sexual and gender identities, and have developed unique cultural neighborhoods (either naturally or through redlining) over its time.
Joseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created a year-round producing home to focus on new plays and musicals. Among numerous examples of these were the works of David Rabe, Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Charles Gordone's No Place to Be Somebody, and Papp's production of Michael Bennett's Pulitzer Prize–winning musical A Chorus Line. Papp also founded Shakespeare in the Park, helped to develop other off-Broadway theatres and worked to preserve the historic Broadway Theatre District.
A Chorus Line is a 1975 musical with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante.
The San Jose Repertory Theatre was the first resident professional theatre company in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1980 by James P. Reber. In 2008, after the demise of the American Musical Theatre of San Jose, the San Jose Rep became the largest non-profit, professional theatre company in the South Bay with an annual operating budget of $5 million. In 2006, it was saved from impending insolvency by a $2 million bailout loan from the city of San Jose; this was later restructured into a long-term loan similar to a mortgage.
Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a regional theater company located in Berkeley, California. It runs seven productions each season from its two stages in Downtown Berkeley.
The Curran Theatre, located at 445 Geary Street between Taylor and Mason Streets in the Theatre District of San Francisco, California opened in February 1922, and was named after its first owner, Homer Curran. As of 2014, the theater is owned by Carole Shorenstein Hays.
The San Francisco Theatre District is a neighborhood in San Francisco named for the legitimate theaters located there. The district encompasses part of the Union Square shopping district and the Tenderloin and Civic Center neighborhoods. Theaters in the area include the Orpheum Theatre, Curran Theatre, Golden Gate Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, and American Conservatory Theater.
Redhead is a musical with music composed by Albert Hague and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, who with her brother, Herbert, along with Sidney Sheldon and David Shaw wrote the book/libretto. Set in London in the 1880s, around the time of Jack the Ripper, the musical is a murder mystery in the setting of a wax museum.
The Golden Apple is a musical adaptation of parts of the Iliad and Odyssey with music by Jerome Moross and lyrics by John Treville Latouche. The musical premiered Off-Broadway in 1954 and then transferred to Broadway.
The Pacific Repertory Theatre (PacRep), originally known as the GroveMont Theatre, is a non-profit year-round theatre company based in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. It is the only professional theatre company located on the Monterey Peninsula. The company presents an annual season of ten to twelve productions, both stage plays and musicals.
Stephen Moorer is an American stage actor, director, and producer based on the Central California Coast. He founded the GroveMont Theatre in 1982, renaming the non-profit organization Pacific Repertory Theatre in 1994, when the group acquired the Golden Bough Playhouse in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
Gustave Albert Lansburgh was an American architect largely known for his work on luxury cinemas and theaters. He was the principal architect of theaters on the West Coast from 1900 to 1930.
Francis Jue is an American actor and singer. Jue is known for his performances on Broadway, in national tours, off-Broadway and in regional theatre, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area and at The Muny in St. Louis. His roles in plays and musicals range from Shakespeare to Rodgers and Hammerstein to Disney to David Henry Hwang. He is also known for his recurring role on the TV series Madam Secretary (2014–2019).
The Orpheum Theatre, originally the Pantages Theatre, is located at 1192 Market Street at Hyde, Grove and 8th Streets in the Civic Center district of San Francisco, California. The theatre first opened in 1926 as one of the many designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca for theater-circuit owner Alexander Pantages. The interior features a vaulted ceiling, while the facade is a Plateresque Revival. The Orpheum seats 2,197 patrons. In 1998, after a previous renovation in the 1970s, a $20 million renovation was completed to make the Orpheum more suitable for Broadway shows. The theatre is a locally designated San Francisco landmark as determined by the San Francisco Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board.
The Golden Gate Theatre is a performance venue located at 1 Taylor Street at the corner of Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco, California, United States. It opened in 1922 as a vaudeville house and later was a major movie theater. In the 1960s it boasted a Cinerama screen, but by the early 1970s it had declined and was showing blaxploitation films. It was restored and reopened as a performing arts venue in 1979.
Tony Taccone is an American theater director, and the former artistic director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California.
BroadwaySF is a commercial theatrical production company in San Francisco.
Maria-Christina Oliveras is an American television, stage and film actress, singer and voice-over artist. She has performed extensively on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regionally, and in various films and television series, and is known for her versatility and transformational character work in a number of world premieres. She is of Filipino and Puerto Rican descent.
The Castro District, commonly referred to as the Castro, is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco. The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States. Having transformed from a working-class neighborhood through the 1960s and 1970s, the Castro remains one of the most prominent symbols of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) activism and events in the world.
Party People is a play conceived/written/composed by UNIVERSES Theater Ensemble and directed by Liesl Tommy, with instrumentation and sound design by Broken Chord and choreography by Millicent Johnny. It was originally commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2009 and premiered at the festival in 2012. The production was then produced at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2014 and later at The Public Theater (NY) in 2016. It is an original work inspired by the revolutionary movements of the sixties and seventies, namely the Black Panther Party and The Young Lords.