Category Archives: The 7 Fingers

Dear San Francisco still charms, dazzles

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The human-scale circus acts in Dear San Francisco are as captivating as ever as the show continues to evolve in its second year at Club Fugazi. Photos courtesy of Dear San Francisco and Club Fugazi Experiences


Dear San Francisco, the dazzling acrobatic spectacular that had the audacity to set up shop in Club Fugazi after the historic nearly half-century run of Beach Blanket Babylon’s, is now in its second year. The show will always hold in a place in my heart as only the second in-person show I attended after a year and a half of watching theater on screens. That experience was mind blowing, not least because I was in a crowd of people who seemed to be as happy as I was just to be in the same room.

And then there was the show – co-conceived and co-directed by Shana Carroll and Gypsy Snider of the amazing cirque nouveau troupe The 7 Fingers – a thrilling, up-close experience with nine acrobats/dancers/athletes/charmers who wrote a love letter to San Francisco with their bodies and their startling hold on the audience and each other.

I had the pleasure of returning to Dear San Francisco recently to see how the show has evolved since October 2021. I still stand by everything in my original review (read it here), and, if anything, I enjoyed the show even more simply because the performers are are so relentlessly talented and charismatic.

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As with any circus-type venture, the acts may change as performers come in and out of the show. I missed the unicycle and teeter-board acts that blew the top off my head the first time around, but the 90-minute show (which seems to have trimmed its subtitle, A High-Flying Love Story) is still bursting with thrills and heart and humor.

A shout out to the entire cast – Sereno “Reno” Aguilar Izzo, Dominic Cruz, Devin Henderson, Maya Kesselman, Oliver Layher, Shengan Pan, Chloe Somers Waller, Enmeng Song and Kyran Walton – for their stunning virtuosity and their extraordinary teamwork. Though the performers have their specialties, it also seems like everyone does a little bit of everything, including playing instruments, reciting beat poetry and creating gorgeous stage pictures in tandem with the projections by Alexander V. Nichols.

Dear San Francisco has beauty, power, excitement, laughs and abundant reminders of San Francisco’s pleasures (and occasional pains). It’s hard to imagine a more worthy successor to Beach Blanket or a show that deserves to have just as long a theatrical life.

Here’s a lovely segment from the show:

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Dear San Francisco is selling tickets through July 30 at Club Fugazi, 678 Green St., San Francisco. Running time is 90 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $49-$99. Call 415-273-0600 or visit clubfugazisf.com

Climb aboard ACT’s dazzling Passengers

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ABOVE: Andrew Sumner and Beto Freitas in Passengers , from The 7 Fingers, at American Conservatory Theater’s newly christened Toni Rembe Theater, through Oct. 9. BELOW: Santiago Rivera (center) and the ensemble. Photo credit: Kevin Berne


Going along for the ride in Passengers, the season opener for American Conservatory Theater, is one of the most thrilling experiences of the year.

This shouldn’t be surprising given that the show, a glorious blend of dance, theater and circus, comes from the ever-inspiring troupe The 7 Fingers and is directed ,written and choreographed by one of that group’s founders, Shana Carroll.

For the few weeks while Passengers is running on the stage of ACT’s newly re-christened Toni Rembe Theater (named for an extraordinary patron of the Bay Area arts), we have the great honor of having two 7 Fingers shows in town. The other is the long-running Dear San Francisco at Club Fugazi. And what these two shows have in common is the marvelous, entertaining and often thrilling showcase of the human body in motion. There is poetry and drama and humor and sexiness in that movement, and a whole lot more. There are circus acts you may recognize, but there’s always a theatrical spin, a novel approach and/or a delicious charge to the choreography that gives it all a unique charm.

Passengers is all about train travel. In the opening moments, the troupe of nine begins breathing together as if in a meditation class. Then those breaths turn into the rhythmic sound of a train rolling down the tracks, and there’s no looking back.

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We are in stations, on bridges, in tunnels, inside the passenger cars exploring relationships among lovers, friends and strangers. The (mostly) pre-recorded musical score by Colin Gagné and the stunning visual designs by Johnny Ranger on Ana Cappelluto’s set conjure cinematic impressions of travel, with even the shadows of Éric Champoux’s lighting design adding to the beauty of the performances.

Once this whole enterprise gets moving, there is no let-up in the onslaught of gorgeous stage pictures. Just the movement and the detail in Carroll’s choreography is enough to keep your eyes finding fascinating places to land. But then there are the acts themselves, performed with such panache and gobsmacking skill. You’ve seen people juggle, walk the tightrope and swing on a trapeze before. But never quite like this.

Gravity is defied on ribbons and poles, and the finale, a sort of trapeze act that only involves human bodies and no actual trapeze, is filled with such power and grace that you may forget to breathe.

Rarely do you experience such high art that provides such thorough entertainment. There’s no pretension here – just the aim of creating something beautiful and amazing and even occasionally emotional. There’s spoken word, some live singing and some live ukulele playing. It doesn’t have the cold machine feel of some other modern circuses – this is warm and human and exciting.

At 100 minutes, Passengers flies by, even though the show never feels rushed. It’s a testament to Carroll and The 7 Fingers that this is one journey you just don’t want to end.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Passengers by Shana Carroll and The 7 Fingers continues through Oct. 9. Length: 100 minutes. Tickets range from $25-$110 (subject to change). Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco. Call 415-749-2228 or visit www.act-sf.org.