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Arts & Culture

The San Francisco Giants Now Own the Curran Theatre

Sarah Hotchkiss
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The Refurbished Curran Theater reopens Jan. 25 with the show 'Fun Home'
A view of the newly refurbished Curran Theatre when it reopened in 2017. The historic San Francisco venue was sold to the San Francisco Giants baseball team in December of 2025. (Cy Musiker/KQED)

2025 isn’t done delivering surprises. The Curran Theatre is now owned by San Francisco’s baseball team, which bought the historic theater from Carole Shorenstein Hays for an undisclosed sum.

Broadway SF will continue to operate the venue, built in 1922, and all current programming will continue as scheduled.

“Acquiring the Curran expands our commitment to San Francisco and reinforces our core belief that sports, arts and culture are essential to San Francisco’s identity, economy and resurgence,” said Giants’ president and CEO Larry Baer in today’s announcement.

He went on to state that the organization will honor the Curran’s past, and build on those offerings, “inclusive of music, comedy and family entertainment.” The Giants’ stadium already hosts a number of live performances — owning the Curran will increase the organization’s producing options.

Shorenstein Hays, a veteran theater producer, has owned the venue since 2010. She acquired her first Tony in 1987 backing August Wilson’s Fences, and won again in 2010 with the Denzel Washington/Viola Davis revival of the same play. Her most recent Tony came from producing the 2015 musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home.

Carole Shorenstein Hayes in her favorite seat in the upper balcony at the refurbished Curran Theater
Carole Shorenstein Hayes in her favorite seat in the upper balcony at the refurbished Curran Theater, circa 2017. (Cy Musiker/KQED)

That same year, Hays began major renovations at the Curran while putting on smaller-scale, experimental productions under the moniker “Curran: Under Construction.” The theater reopened in early 2017, cleaner, with larger bathrooms, and with fresh coats of colorful paint.

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Recent productions at the Curran included the ’70s-set Stereophonic and the corn-themed musical Shucked. Through Dec. 21, audience can catch The Golden Girls Live: The Christmas Episodes, a 20-year-old San Francisco holiday tradition, playing through Dec. 21.

News of the sale comes at the end of a bleak year for the Bay Area theater scene, with cuts to federal funding and closure after heartbreaking closure. “It was essential to me that [the Curran’s] next stewards would ensure it remains a vibrant home for artists and audiences alike,” Shorenstein Hays said in the announcement. “I am so pleased that the Giants have stepped up to the plate.”

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