Making theater dance – an ode to collaboration

One of the most exciting things about the world premiere of American Conservatory Theater's The Tosca Project is that it shines a big old spotlight on the riches of the Bay Area.

Here is a revered local theater company venturing into risky territory – a play mostly without words told through dance and recorded music of all kinds – in collaboration with an artist from another revered local company. But get this, that other revered institution is not a theater company.

Yes, ACT Artistic Director Carey Perloff has spent four years working with the San Francisco Ballet's Val Caniparoli to create The Tosca Project, a story inspired by – hold your hats again – a piece of San Francisco history. Are you getting all this local, local, local stuff? The legendary Tosca Cafe in North Beach is the subject, from its opening in 1919 by a trio of Italians to its current status as the royal court of Jeanette Etheredge and her literary and cinematic pals, and that history is related via dance, music (opera, jazz, standards, rock) and even some beat poetry.