“Beach Blanket Babylon,” the headline-ripping satirical song-and-dance revue considered by many a San Francisco landmark in the same league as Lombard Street and the Golden Gate Bridge, is set to close after 45 years. The final performances will be held on New Year’s Eve. “Audiences have embraced Beach Blanket Babylon since the day it opened on June 7, 1974,” producer Jo Schuman Silver said in a news release. “Originally scheduled to run for only six weeks, the show became an international phenomenon and the quintessential San Francisco experience. I am thankful to our fans from around the world who have supported us from the very beginning. Our hats are off to each and every one of you!” Silver is the widow of Steve Silver, who created the show in 1974 and watched it become a local favorite and eventually a nationally known phenomenon, characterized by its good-natured mocking of celebrities, pop culture trends and politics (with San Francisco’s characteristically liberal viewpoint). And perhaps most of all, the show was known for the huge and lavish hats donned by characters during the production. Steve Silver died of complications of AIDS in 1995, and Jo Schuman Silver has produced it since. Reports said she announced the closing to her staff and others Wednesday. She did not mention the reason for closing the show, which remains a popular draw among both locals and tourists. “Beach Blanket Babylon,” performed several times a week at a North Beach nightspot, stands as the longest running musical revue in the world. By the time it’s all said and done, there will have been a record-breaking 17,216 performances and seen by over 6 million fans. Tickets are on sale for all remaining performances (besides the New Year’s Eve send-off shows). For more information, visit www.beachblanketbabylon.com, call 415-421-4222 or visit the Club Fugazi Box Office, 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd., San Francisco. While the jokes and targets in the revue changed with the news of the times, the basic story line has remained the same: Snow White as she searches for her Prince Charming, encountering celebrity characters along the way. Recent personalities have included the likes of Donald and Melania Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, Freddie Mercury, Lady Gaga, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sarah Huckabee, Barack and Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Stormy Daniels, Oprah, and the San Francisco Giants.<doc-sep>For 45 years, the team at “Beach Blanket Babylon” has donned enormous hats and skewered politics and pop culture in a campy musical revue in a snug North Beach theater. The beloved show has become so ingrained in San Francisco culture that many rank it alongside the Golden Gate Bridge and cable cars. Though seemingly tireless, the decades-long production will finally come to an end this year, taking its last two curtain calls on New Year’s Eve. Producer Jo Schuman Silver announced the news to her staff of 85 before curtain on Wednesday, April 17. The show’s ending not for financial reasons, but because Schuman Silver felt that it was time and didn’t feel comfortable handing it off to a successor. She’s run “Beach Blanket” since the 1995 death of Steve Silver, the show’s creator and her husband. “There was no reason — I just started thinking, ‘Wow, how much longer do we go?’ ” she said. She’s fond of saying that Steve Silver thought the show would last just six weeks. The show’s first review in The Chronicle, from 1974, notes that it was “scheduled for two more weekends.” Now it’s the longest-running musical revue on the planet. As of this month, “Beach Blanket” has reached 6.5 million patrons, operating with army-grade precision from the moment people walk in the doors and a phalanx of ushers whisks them to their seats, all with the grace of a ballet danseur who can make the clumsiest partner look professional by virtue of his capable lifts and carries. The production itself unfolds with similar pacing and grace, the sliding upstage doors parting again and again to reveal still another costume, wig and hat, each more outrageous than the last, each accompanied by a bring-it-on-home verse and chorus of a pop song that in any other show would be the finale. At “Beach Blanket,” every number could be the finale. It’s toured to Las Vegas and London; it’s opened the Academy Awards; and it’s counted Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, David Bowie, Liza Minnelli and Robin Williams among its audience members. Its caricatures target the left and right — from Michelle Obama to Sarah Huckabee Sanders — and pop-culture figures from Barbra Streisand to Ariana Grande. Lines change nightly, responding to current events, but as filtered through a dancing Mr. Peanut or a towering Tina Turner wig that looks like Cousin Itt. Schuman Silver still brings in fresh headlines and political cartoons each day as inspiration. (Mad magazine is one favorite source.) A ‘Beach Blanket Babylon’ Timeline: From street art to British Royalty Jonathan Moscone says the show “took the wild, gay, drag, fabulous energy of San Francisco and turned that into a celebration of the city writ large.” He said it made visitors think, “not only do I get San Francisco; I get it, and I love it,” adding that when he was a child, the show was his “favorite birthday place.” And Moscone, Chief of Engagement at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, former California Shakespeare Theater artistic director and multiple-time panelist for Beach Blanket’s scholarship program, had a huge crush on Nancy Bleiweiss as Snow White. “She was my first gay icon” — before he even knew what a gay icon was. Prior to the announcement, in an interview at the Pacific Heights home of her friends Ann and Gordon Getty, Schuman Silver said she’s been considering the move for about three years. A Florida vacation with her family prompted first thoughts about an exit. “One of my cousins said, ‘How much longer are you going to have that show?’ I said, ‘Why, you want me to leave it to you?’ And they all said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘I can’t. It has to be run like it was left to me, and you didn’t know Steve, unfortunately, and it has to be run like Steve envisioned it.’ “I think we’ve done that,” Schuman Silver continued. “I think it’s evolved all through the years like Steve would have done. We’ve always had the strictest guidelines for making it the best show we possibly can, having the best talent, the best people working there. That’s why I could never leave it to anybody.” Charlotte Shultz, San Francisco’s chief of protocol and one of Steve Silver’s best friends, called the news “heartbreaking.” Quoting her husband, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, she said, “When you think of San Francisco, it’s the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars and ‘Beach Blanket Babylon.’ ” Steve Silver used her as a model for the female outline on playbills and posters for the show; Shultz and her husband even performed in “Beach Blanket,” for Prince Charles — in a show that Charlotte Shultz co-wrote. “George was Superman, and I was Wonder Woman. I flew,” she recalled. “When it goes — something you love — you’re never ready, and I’m not ready.” “Most of us would not have thought it would have lasted longer than six months,” says former San Francisco mayor and Chronicle columnist Willie Brown, also a friend of Schuman Silver. “But it had literally its own flavor. It became a part of San Francisco on the day it opened, and it has remained a part of San Francisco to this minute.” He attributes its success to its responsiveness to current events, as well as its ability to relate to locals and visitors alike. “It was always dignified. It was funny as all hell. But it wasn’t like ‘Saturday Night Live.’ It was more like Johnny Carson’s monologue — or, now, Stephen Colbert’s monologue.” For Bay Area actors, “Beach Blanket” has represented one of the coveted few local opportunities not just for steady employment but for benefits almost unheard of in theater, such as paid vacation, sick time, health care and retirement. Actors Doug Magpiong, Tammy Nelson and Curt Branom have all been with the show for 25 years; actor Renée Lubin has been there 33. Band member Steve Salgo tallies 34 years, and stage manager John Camajani just retired after 40. Director Kenny Mazlow and Musical Director Bill Keck count 29 and 26 years, respectively.<doc-sep>After more than four decades, the quintessential San Francisco theater experience Beach Blanket Babylon will close forever on December 31, 2019, bringing an end to years of camp, kitsch, celebrity lampooning, and really, really big hats. Created by street artist and designer Steve Silver in 1974, Beach Blanket Babylon (BBB) has been a part of the San Francisco scene for longer than many of the landmarks and cultural figures it features, being barely younger than the Transamerica Pyramid. It’s hard to imagine what the city—or the world—will do without its longest-running live performance revue, but at least the BBB team can look back on 45 years of history and say there’s not much that they didn’t do: BBB bills itself as “the world’s longest-running musical revue,” a laurel that it has promoted at least since 1984. In 2017, it advertised “nearly 17,000 performances” and an all-time audience of more than six million people. The show’s longtime venue is Club Fugazi at 678 Green, though that portion of Green Street is now known as Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard. BBB has played Club Fugazi, a circa-1913 venue, non-stop for over 40 years, meaning that many people now simply refer to the theater by the title of the show itself. The Club Fugazi building started as an Italian community center, named for Italian-American magnate John Fugazi. Previously, it was called Fugazi Hall and hosted the likes of jazz great Thelonious Monk. The first, deeply unofficial performance of what would become BBB was on Union Street in 1973, when Silver and some friends made a quick buck singing alongside a busker, with the addition of some hastily retrieved costumes. From that original, unwitting guitarist, the show has grown to include a five-piece band: trumpet, percussion, two synthesizers, and something called a flugelhorn. Club Fugazi was not BBB’s first venue. The show opened at the Savoy Tivoli bar (still open for business) before briefly showing at the Olympus Club on Columbus Avenue. It took up its current residence in 1975. As Silver tells the story, he began looking for an indoor venue after the police came to break up one of the street performances. BBB was originally scheduled to show at the venue for six weeks. When that time was up, Silver signed a 20-year lease with the theater. Heiress Charlotte Mailliard Shultz bought out every seat in the house on the first opening night. Former Mayor Willie Brown, a longtime fan, says he gave the whole thing about six months after it first opened. Can’t win ‘em all. Legend has it that department store tycoon Cyril Magnin saw the show 464 times. The venue seats 373, down from the original 400. Tickets were originally $2.50—a little less than $13 in today’s currency. These days prices range from $23 to $135. The first performances at Savoy Tivoli seated only 214 people. The review performs seven shows a week, including two Sunday shows for minors who otherwise aren’t allowed entrance. Though the programs had a raunchy rep in the ‘70s, these days it’s considered pretty harmless. The age limitation is because of alcohol served on the premises rather than randy content. Note that BBB still has four years left on its lease in the longtime space, creating a bit of a mystery about what the place will do after the show goes. The “Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard” designation has been in place since 1996, after a 1995 vote by the Board of Supervisors “commending Steve Silver’s work and philanthropy and urging the Mayor to urge the Directors of Parking and Traffic and Public Works to designate all of the 600 block of Green Street as ‘Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard,’” about six months after Silver died. The bust of Silver installed at the theater in 1999 was created by Piedmont-based artist Bruce Wolfe, who also designed the bust of now-Gov. Gavin Newsom at SF City Hall. The Silver bust is made of bronze, which is probably less expensive but still seems like a missed opportunity. According to the show’s longtime costume designer, the backstage area at BBB is smaller than the stage itself. The show has toured twice, once to Las Vegas and once to London. It’s also put in pop-up performances at various other venues over the years, including the War Memorial Opera House, the infamous 1989 Oscars, and the White House—quite a step up from the Union Street days. For the record, the Oscar performance was poorly reviewed—Silver devised the widely panned opening number with Rob Lowe and Snow White—and Disney threatened to sue over the use of the Snow White character. Critics. Originally replete with references to ’70s pop media and politics, the show constantly changes to add new political figures, celebrities, and references to San Francisco culture (and buildings) nearly every year. For an idea of just how elastic the program is, Snow White, long the lead role for over 40 years, didn’t premiere until 1978. The show has only 10 speaking parts but employs 85 people full-time. The original cast included four people, plus a band and “a chorus line of hula-dancing middle-aged housewives.” Current producer Jo Schuman Silver saw the show for the first time in 1982. She later married Silver and eventually took over the production. Which is quite a positive review. The BBB title was not the show’s first, as Silver originally dubbed it A Valentine’s Show. The current show has also changed its title a few times over the years but inevitably reverts back to just “Beach Blanket Babylon.” The signature San Francisco skyline hat wasn’t added until 1977, where it has proceeded to get bigger and more elaborate with each passing generation. Silver designed the first hat himself, with a tiny Transamerica Pyramid that would grow out of it, but tapped puppeteer Alan Greenspan—no relation to the former federal chairman—to build it. For the show’s 40th anniversary, past hats ranging up to 29 feet tall went on display at places like SF City Hall, Ghirardelli Square, and the de Young Museum. Notably, the de Young first staged an exhibition of BBB hats in 1988.<doc-sep>After 17,216 performances, 6.5 million visitors, and who-knows-how-many gargantuan hats, San Francisco’s enduring “Beach Blanket Babylon” is ending its run. The zany spoof show, which has been running since 1974 and claims to be the longest-running musical revue in the world, will play its final performances on New Year’s Eve, the producer announced on Wednesday. “I just felt it was time — after 45 years, it was the right time to close,” said the producer, Jo Schuman Silver. “It’s better for us to go out on top than to drag this out.” The pun-and-sight-gag-filled show has a feather-thin plot — Snow White, looking for love, wanders the world encountering famous people who sing pop song parodies, often about politics and celebrity. It has become a treasured San Francisco staple, renowned as much for its spectacularly sculptural headgear as its content. (A San Francisco skyline hat is 14 feet high, nine feet wide and weighs more than 250 pounds.) It has been performed for a parade of notables, from Liza Minnelli to Queen Elizabeth II.<doc-sep>
The beloved San Francisco attraction “Beach Blanket Babylon,” which bills itself as “the longest-running musical revue in the world,” announced Wednesday that after 45 years, the show will hold its final curtain call at the end of the year. Producer Jo Shuman Silver told the cast and crew earlier in the day of her decision. “I just felt it was time,” she said. “The show had a great 45-year run, and I just wanted the show to go out on top.… We have a show tonight, which is very difficult for our performers, but the show must go.” After drawing large crowds for his notorious street performances, show creator Steve Silver opened “Beach Blanket Babylon” on June 7, 1974, in the back room of the historic bar Savoy Tivoli. The floor was covered in 2 tons of sand, and a lifeguard took tickets at the door and sprayed the backs of audience members’ hands with Coppertone, marking their entry, according to the show’s history. The original show included “a chorus line of hula-dancing middle-aged housewives doing card stunts” and a band dressed as poodles. It was supposed to run six weeks. When “Beach Blanket Babylon” plays its final show Dec. 31, it will have played 17,216 performances. This year’s cast, which performs Wednesday through Sunday at Club Fugazi, includes parody performances of President Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), Russian President Vladimir Putin and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The show follows Snow White as she takes a journey searching for Prince Charming. She encounters a range of politicians and celebrities along the way, such as Stormy Daniels and Oprah Winfrey. The show is known for its iconic hats — including the San Francisco skyline hat, which is 14 feet tall, 9 feet wide and 3 feet deep — and superb costumes. Each performer has between seven and 15 hat, costume or wig changes per performance. Before Steve Silver died in 1995, he told his wife, Jo Shuman Silver, that she would know when it was time to end the show. Shuman Silver said she felt her husband’s presence every day, as did many of the cast and crew who worked with him. “It feels good that so many people have loved this show,” she said. “Of course, it’s bittersweet — I’ve been crying all day. It’s been very difficult for me, but the outpouring of love right now, because we just told the cast today, has been unreal.” Steve Silver, creator of “Beach Blanket Babylon,” started the show in 1974. The show kept going after his death in 1995.