10 Ways to Fall in Love With Bay Area Theatre and Dance

Find more of KQED’s picks for the best fall 2023 events here.

For Bay Area theatre, fall is when summer festivals wind down and new seasons of performing companies ramp up. As always, far more amazing shows open over the next few months than one roundup can contain. But here’s a sampling of the most exciting, innovative, and thought-provoking works hitting the boards this fall — from A.C.T. to Z Space.

Theater

‘Hippest Trip — The Soul Train Musical’

Aug. 25–Oct. 1, 2023
A.C.T.’s Toni Rembe Theater, San Francisco

All aboard — the Soul Train is about to leave the station! Hippest Trip — The Soul Train Musical promises to turn A.C.T.’s Toni Rembe Theater into a celebratory dance party, as well as an homage to the talent that made Soul Train a beloved household staple for 35 years. Spotlighting the Black music, dance and culture variety show founded by Don Cornelius in 1971, Hippest Trip presents a powerhouse cast, playwriting by Tony Award-nominated Dominique Morisseau, direction by Kamilah Forbes and choreography by Toni Stone’s Camille A. Brown.

‘Wolf Play’

Sept. 2–Oct. 1, 2023
Ashby Stage, Berkeley

Tackling the morally dubious practice of adoptive parents “re-homing” their children online, Hansol Jung’s devastatingly astute Wolf Play brings an unforgettable protagonist to life in this Elizabeth Carter-directed production. Jeenu, a 6-year old adoptee, finds refuge in the idea that he is a wolf seeking his pack. For new parents Robin and Ash, Jeenu is both a completion and a complication inside their own refuge of a chosen family. When external forces intrude in their circle, each character must learn to fight for their territory — and for each other.

‘Gary: A Sequel To Titus Andronicus’

Sept. 8–Oct. 1, 2023
Oakland Theater Project at FLAX

One of Shakespeare’s most harrowing plays, Titus Andronicus ends in buckets of blood and piles of bodies — a state of affairs gleefully exaggerated in Taylor Mac’s Gary. With literal bodies stacked to the ceiling, and a pair of put-upon servants to mop up the mess the mighty have left behind, Gary gives voice to the voiceless — albeit with fart jokes. But don’t think Mac’s foray into Theatre of the Ridiculous territory is all about the frailties of the human body. What Mac is after is examining the frailties of the systems that perpetrate cycles of violence and trauma, finding unexpected grace under unimaginable pressure.

‘Edit Annie’

Sept. 21–Oct. 14, 2023
Magic Theatre, San Francisco

It’s been two long years since Crowded Fire Theater presented Isaac Gómez’ terrific and terrifying The Displaced. Their West Coast premiere of Edit Annie, by rising New York-based playwright and video artist Mary Glen Fredrick, promises to be worth the wait. Unapologetically rooted in the technological tangles of our time, the play explores the implications and repercussions of our ability to continuously reinvent, redefine, and rewind our relationships in a heavily mediated reality. With a superlative cast, co-direction by Leigh Rondon-Davis and Nailah Unole Dida-nese’ah Harper-Malveaux, and video designed and edited by Fredrick with Lana Palmer, Edit Annie gives the Extremely Online generation a chance to connect IRL without even having to swipe.

‘Terror Vault Presents: The Initiation’

Sept. 29-Oct. 31, 2023
San Francisco Mint

Borne from Peaches Christ’s taste for the macabre and San Francisco’s appetite for the immersive, Terror Vault is a haunted attraction that truly delivers. Appropriately ensconced in the magnificent Old Mint — a granite behemoth built in 1874 — Terror Vault makes use of its shadowy corners, vintage vaults, and disorienting floorplan to devious effect. This year’s theme —The Initiation — delves into the Bay Area’s unsavory association with cults and their leaders, inviting audiences to attend a “seminar” for a mysterious organization called INsight. Far more involved than your typical haunted house, Terror Vault shows include fully realized world-building, humor, exhibitionists, the best horror makeup around, and consensual audience interactivity for a thrilling adventure you won’t soon forget.

‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’

Oct. 20–Nov. 12, 2023
EXIT on Taylor, San Francisco

From its inception, Cutting Ball Theater has been devoted to interrogating the present moment through revitalized classics that sidestep mundane realism in favor of fertile imagination. That makes this adaptation of proto-science fiction Rossum’s Universal Robots completely on-brand, while still staking out some fantastical new territory for this experimental company. Written in 1920 by Czech playwright Karel Čapek, R.U.R. examines the human condition through the eyes of its greatest imitators, and would-be inheritors. This production is helmed by Chris Steele — who recently stepped in as the company’s fourth Artistic leader operating within a newly-defined collective — and features a dynamic cast of robots who may have already taken over the world.

‘Bulrusher’

Oct. 27–Dec. 3, 2023
Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre

In a highly anticipated return to Berkeley, the 2007 Pulitzer-nominated Bulrusher is a language-driven coming-of-age story. Questions of braided identities, personal liberation and birthright combine with poetry, clairvoyance and the regionally specific Northern California dialect known as “Boontling.” Written by Bay Area-raised Eisa Davis, the niece of activist-scholar Angela Davis and an artistic multi-hyphenate in her own right, Bulrusher asks: How do we discover who we really are in a world that constantly seeks to define us — and confine us? Nicole A. Watson directs.

Dance

‘Nursing These Wounds’

Sept. 22–24, 2023
ODC Theater, San Francisco
Oct. 21–30, 2023
Brava Cabaret, San Francisco

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the cracks and fissures in so many of our structures and institutions — particularly in the American health care system. So choreographer Alleluia Panis’ embodied exploration of the many faces and pathways of Pilipinix-born nurses and caregivers is as timely as it is vital. Panis, the co-founder of KULARTS, frequently wrestles with themes of migration, labor, and colonization in her work, and looks to folk dance and indigenous tradition to inform her vibrant choreography. This reprise of 2022’s world premiere offers an unflinching, sometimes harrowing, and loving tribute to an entire demographic of under-recognized, overwhelmed public health protectors.

Three at Z

Òrale, Sept. 7–9; The Lost Art of Dreaming, Sept. 29–Oct. 1; Forgetting Tree, Nov. 3–5
Z Space, San Francisco

Dance-driven, genre-exploding work comes to Z Space with a trio of radical performances. First up is Òrale, a mini-festival of pieces directed by David Herrera Performance Company with an exciting who’s-who of nationally recognized Latinx dance-makers, with live music provided by the excellent El Vez and the Memphis Mariachis. Next, Sean Dorsey Dance encores The Lost Art of Dreaming — a visually stunning and emotionally ecstatic work, setting its sights on a future of love and collective liberation, expressed through a choreography of queer trans and non-binary bodies. Finally, Queer Cat Productions and Openhaus Athletics install a “consent-forward” interactive and ecologically-engaged experience called Forgetting Tree in Z Space’s spacious lobby. Curated and created by Jes DeVille, this work promises to stimulate all of the senses — most especially that of the revolutionary within.

San Francisco Trolley Dances: 20th Anniversary Edition

Oct. 21–22, 2023
One Bush Plaza, various locations in San Francisco

There’s simply nothing like the combination dance festival-urban exploration known as Trolley Dances. This year, the San Francisco treat returns to where it all began 20 years ago — on the iconic F-Market line. Starting at One Bush Plaza with Nava Dance Theatre, then hopping on and off the F-Market train en route to Fisherman’s Wharf, audience members will encounter such Bay Area dance luminaries as Blind Tiger Society, Jennifer Perfilio Movement Works, Kinetech Arts, Loco Bloco and artistic director Kim Epifano’s own company, Epiphany Dance. A highlight of the event will be a piece choreographed by San Diego dance legend Jean Isaacs — the originator of the Trolley Dance concept back in 1997.