By Milton W. Hamlin

SGN A&E Writer

                SAN FRANCISCO: The very name of The City By The Bay conjures up fantasies of all sorts. San Francisco, the Gay Mecca of the United States, a city where GLBT travelers feel automatically at home, a city where two men or two women holding hands is so common it is almost always overlooked.

For Northwest art fans, San Francisco offers an incredible feast of musical and theatrical riches. Three operas in three days, touring Broadway musicals at several major theaters, local productions that rival the best of New York in quality, a theater that specializes in Gay and Lesbian-themed plays. Only in San Francisco….

Visitors to The City know that it is easy to, as Tony Bennett famously sang, lose your heart in San Francisco. It’s also easy to lose your art heart in The City By The Bay.

NEW CONSERVATORY HOSTS WORLD PREMIERE OF GAY WAR AT HOME

                The New Conservatory Theatre Company celebrates its 25th anniversary season this year with its traditional all-year Pride Season. When the ambitious company started 25 years ago, the group offered the usual assortment of new works and recent off-Broadway titles.

The annual Pride Production in June—scheduled to attract local GLBT audiences and tourists—was always the box office smash of the year. Profits from that show—usually a lighthearted Gay comedy, usually with a nude scene or two—supported the more ambitious, less popular works. NCTC added another title with strong GLBT interest. Revenues increased. Not too many years later, the company offered a full year Pride Season to its eager audiences. While serious works were part of the schedule, the Gay comedies—many from New York’s fertile off-Broadway scene—dominated so much that NCTC was often jokingly referred to as “The Nude Conservatory Theatre” by local fans.

Now celebrating its 12th  Pride Season, NCTC stages a mixture of serious works that reflect contemporary concerns of the GLBT community, frivolous comedies that entertain with charm, “Gay versions” of modern classics, the inescapable one-man or one-woman shows that appear on every theater calendar. Seattle’s late and lamented GLBT stage, Alice B. Theatre, closed many seasons ago and no group has attempted to replace its niche.

The world premiere of Brad Erickson’s The War At Home reflects NCTC’s growing strength in developing new scripts on major GLBT themes.

(Seattle audiences are not likely to see the play staged locally--Taproot Theater would be a natural for the religious values the play addresses but the language and a few Gay-themed sexual situations are probably too intense for Taproot’s conservative audiences.)

The War At Home is set in contemporary times in Charleston, South Carolina. A Southern Baptist minister and his loving-but-independent wife have accepted—or almost accepted--the fact that their son is openly Gay. The son, a developing writer, lives in New York with his “roommate” but has arrived for a lengthy visit during a national arts conference that puts Charleston in the national news every year.

The minister’s young, charismatic assistant has heard that the festival will include a new play about Gay Marriage and a young Gay man who is the son of a Southern Baptist minister. He urges the senior minister to support a boycott of the theater hosting the new play. The elder man suggests they just ignore the production rather than create more publicity for the little theater producing the new work.

It’s soon obvious that the mysterious New York playwright and the minister’s visiting son are one-and-the-same. A childhood friend, an appealing, witty African American theater director, is artistic leader of the fringe theater—and the son’s first major love many years ago.

While The War At Home has far too many melodramatic overtones and a few too many plot threads, it is a major, serious work for GLBT theater fans. The performances are all solid—Patrick MacKellan reptilian assistant minister is especially strong and Jason Jeremy’s fringe theater director is both touching and comic relief. John Dixon’s direction is totally on target.

The production, which has been extended several times, is scheduled to close this weekend but visitors should check with the theater for another possible extension. NCTC is, indeed, a “center” which houses three theaters and often has multiple productions open at the same time. GLBT stage fans should always check NCTC calendar. Upcoming productions include the just-opened Convenience, a new musical about a single mother and her Gay son, and A Queer Carol, a modern Gay take on Dickens’ classic, running Nov. 29-Dec. 31.

A highlight of the winter is the West Coast Premiere of Farm Boys, a new play based on the non-fiction book Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men From The Rural Midwest. Craig Lucas’ The Dying Gaul, the Gay-themed play that had its world premiere in Seattle at Intiman Theatre, and the U.S. premiere of Edmund White’s Terre Haute, highlight the winter and spring.

Richard Greenberg’s Tony Award Winning Take Me Out--with its famous full-frontal nude shower scene in the men’s locker room—runs May 11-July 1, for San Francisco’s Gay Pride season. Take Me Out had a memorable Emerald City staging at the Seattle Rep right after its Broadway run. James Kirkwood’s camp classic, Legends, will also be staged for Pride audiences, June 1-July 14. (The legendary dueling divas comedy is currently on a national tour headlining Joan Collins and Linda Evans—Bits&Bytes told you all about its premiere in Toronto last month in SGN.)

Complete details on NCTC and its many GLBT productions is available at (415) 861-8972. Call and ask for a free season’s brochure and stash it away for your next trip to San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO OPERA HOST 3 PRODUCTIONS MANY WEEKENDS

                San Francisco Opera is the West Coast Mecca for serious music and opera fans. With its vast resources—artistic and financial—and its rotating repertory format, the world class opera company often offers three different productions in a single weekend. Bits&Bytes heads to San Francisco each October, mainly for the fall opera season. Productions of three major works lured this reviewer to The City By The Bay.

OUTSTANDING SINGERS BOOST RIGOLETTO REVIVAL

                Verdi’s beloved Rigoletto returned to SFO in its simple, unit set from 1997. While the set design is “inspired” by the works of Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico, it comes across as a budget production--a series of arches flank center stage, and the central area is indoors or outdoors depending on the placement of a chair or a ladder. Bits&Bytes has seen the SFO physical production three times now, but this was the first time the excellence of the singers made the production’s shortcomings all but disappear.

                The SFO revival was mounted as a showcase for an internationally known interpreter of the title role, Paolo Gavanelli. As is common with major opera houses, another singer “alternated” with Gavanelli and sang the final three performances. Local subscribers and operatic tourists were openly disappointed that they would not hear the international star.

Well, surprise, surprise, Valery Alexejev, a Russian opera star just becoming known in the U.S., was outstanding. Many local fans who had returned to hear the up-and-coming baritone raved about Alexejev’s performance—and one SFO staff member thought he was “more tragic” that the superstar. It was a win/win situation all around.

The supporting cast could not have been stronger. Mary Dunleavy was vocally and physically enchanting as Gilda, the jester’s innocent daughter. Giuseppe Gipali was charmingly rakish as the seductive and slimy Duke Of Mantua. Greer Grimsley, a veteran of many Seattle Opera productions, was effective as Count Monterone whose curse haunts Rigoletto.

Kristinn Sigmundsson was properly sinister as the assassin, Sparafucile (whose name is wonderfully appropriate—it’s colloquial Italian for “shoot the gun”) and Katherine Rohrer was seductive as his sensual sister, Maddalena. Steven Lord conducted with a sure hand. It was an outstanding production of what might have been a routine revival of a beloved work.

SFO HOSTS WAGNER’S TRISTAN AND ISOLDE

                Wagner’s immortal Tristan And Isolde was another major reason for Bits&Bytes’ trip to SFO and The City By The Bay. The production, designed by David Hockney, arrived in San Francisco via Los Angeles Opera, and proved to be a colorful setting for Wagner’s beloved tale of tragic love.

                SGN’s Rod Parke reviewed the production in detail in last week’s issue—“An Isolde To Die For At San Francisco Opera.” Check it out for full details.

BARBER OF SEVILLERETURNS TO SFO

                Rossini’s The Barber of Seville is one of the most appealing, most popular comic operas in the whole opera repertoire. SFO’s 2006 staging, a repeat of a recent SFO triumph, returns to the War Memorial Opera House where it runs through Nov. 30. Bits&Bytes was honored to be allowed to attend a “closed” student and patron dress rehearsal, one of the last rehearsals before the show opened Oct. 31.

                The physical production is a design triumph. A two-story house, complete with furniture and all appropriate details, is center stage and the overwhelming set piece revolves to provide all locations necessary for the zesty comedy. Figaro, the title character, enters on a motor scooter which always delights the opera crowd. Wild antics rule the production--with fine voices and orchestral support.

                Of course, it is unprofessional to “review” a production in its dress rehearsal staging—production problems can readily be solved with several more days available to work out the kinks, singers often sing sotto voce, or half voiced, to protect their vocal cords for a full audience just days away. But, visitors to SFO’s spirited The Barber Of Seville are sure to have great time. Trust Bits&Bytes on that one. The production continues through Nov. 30, making it an ideal comedy for Thanksgiving visitors.

SFO OPERA CONTINUES WINTER, SUMMER SEASONS

                SFO’s season continues with Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, running Nov. 19-Dec. 10, and Bizet’s Carmen, Nov. 21-Dec. 9. Several trio opportunities are available during the Thanksgiving programming. It is possible to see all three productions in just two days, Nov. 25-26.

SFO’s summer season—which includes SF’s Gay Pride Parade weekend—features Mozart’s Don Giovanni (coming in January to Seattle Opera), Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier (which opened Seattle Opera’s current season in August) and Gluck’s rarely performed Iphigenie en Tauride. Ticket information on all SFO productions is available at (415) 864-3330.

ACT’S LITTLE FOXES, MARLO THOMAS COMEDY HIGHLIGHT SF STAGES

                San Francisco’s theater scene is, as usual, alive and well. The American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco’s ACT, is presenting a well received production of Lillian Hellman’s 1939 American classic, The Little Foxes. Bits&Bytes was invited to a final preview performance and is happy to report (but not review) that the sturdy production, continuing through Nov. 26, will delight fans of serious theater.

                Jacqueline Antaramian, remembered from her Seattle work in openly Gay playwright Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul at Intiman, is fully in charge as Regina Giddens. She has outstanding support from Julia Gibson’s Birdie and Margarette Robinson and Rhonnie Washington as the house servants.

ACT just hosted OUT With ACT, its theater night for Gay and Lesbian stage fans. Visitors should ask about the OUT night for ACT’s upcoming The Circle by openly Gay author and playwright Somerset Maugham. It runs Jan. 4-Feb. 4. Information on all ACT productions is available at  (415) 749-2ACT.

Magic Theatre, one of San Francisco’s most respected fringe theaters, is hosting Moving Right Along, three short plays by Elaine May and Jan Mirochek. The three works are directed by May and her daughter, actress/director Jeannie Berlin. Marlo (That Girl) Thomas stars in the major work of the evening. The trio of comedies runs through Nov. 18. Details at  (415) 441-8822.