Sneak Peek: New PianoFight Theater Opens Tonight — The Bold Italic — San Francisco
San Francisco is getting a new kind of theatrical venue, PianoFight, that opens to the public tonight.
When you think of theater many things may come to mind: velvet curtains, fancy crowds, maybe your high school drama teacher and their berets. The word “theater” doesn’t typically bring to mind three young dudes from Santa Barbara who admit to regularly consuming “oceans of beer.” PianoFight is a new space founded by those exact kind of guys and is a venue dedicated to supporting and cultivating offbeat artists and art.
Childhood friends Rob Ready, Dan Williams, and Kevin Fink founded PianoFight Theater in 2007 as a way to avoid the being too much of a grownup. “It was kind of like, ‘Let’s get together and do something cool as we drink our beer before we have to become adults,” Ready remembers, smiling. “I don’t think we’re adults yet, but we’re here.”
PianoFight used to reside in the Off Market Theater but eventually it outgrew the space. After raising $1.2 million via Kickstarter the founders were able to take their dream to a bigger location in the spot that used to house Original Joe’s. “It’s good when someone believes in three guys with a dream,” Williams says. “A lot of people were really pulling for the project,” Fink explains. Evidence of that can be seen in the stair rails leading to the rehearsal rooms. “My dad stained those,” Ready says proudly.
PianoFight’s new home is on Taylor street, near where the Theatre District ends and the Tenderloin begins. The contrast between the street outside and the theater within is dizzying. Uptown Almanac put it succinctly with their headline “New Comedy Venue On SF’s Shittiest Block.” The street in front of the venue is crowded with people smoking and drinking who often leaving their butts or bottles on the ground. Upon entering, you step into a lush lounge with cozy leather seats facing a small raised stage. Ready envisions this space will be used for socializing before or after a show. It may even play host to a three-piece band. The centerpiece of the venue is a bar with a giant mosaic above it featuring a creature the founders affectionately refer to as a “Californicorn.” Williams emphasizes that this bar will serve classic, no frills, American cocktails. “If I catch anyone muddling a drink in this bar they are fired,” he jokes.
The theater also features two stages — a main stage that will seat 92, and a more intimate space that will seat 42. In addition to rehearsal spaces littered with props (including a giant butt made out of exercise balls) the theater also has an in house video-editing suite. Ready says that he plans to have cameras from the main stage feed down to the suite so that some plays can be live streamed. PianoFight also produces a podcast, many films, and recently a record by their house band.
Ready says his goal was to make his theater produce pieces that are accessible and fun, chuckling as he adds, “No Shakespeare here.”
No Shakespeare indeed. The new theater will be christened by its first show tonight, December 19th. It’ll be a perfect example of the kind of offbeat fare PianoFight patrons can expect. “Merry Forking Christmas” is a performance that Ready describes as a “choose your own adventure holiday story.” The play, he says, will feature off color characters such as a pot dealing Santa Claus. Fink reiterates that the goal of PianoFight is to produce new work by new artists with a decidedly local slant. Ready hints that future productions could include a dance show, a live play critique, and an event where audiences get to pelt actors with rotting veggies.
Williams explains that this space is conducive to the group’s vision of hosting the ultimate creative destination for local artists. As he and the gang sit amidst the debris of a theater almost done with construction (including a box office filled with actual boxes) Williams reflects on the idea of providing artists with a “virtuous loop.” “ We give them a space to conceive, a place to develop and rehearse, to perform, and to party afterwards.” It sounds like this new theater has many plays and many parties in its future.
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