Dear San Francisco still charms, dazzles

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.

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