Yep, a live performance theater venue. We mostly host cabaret, circus, magic, specialty movie screenings with interviews/panels, comedy, etc. We’ve even hosted mimes! Our biggest hit so far was hosting the Star Wars parody burlesque show “The Empire Strips Back” over the summer 2022.

In these Covid-adjacent times, it’s less about me picking the performances and more about hosting anyone who’s interested in renting the space. But yeah I do get final say in who we host and how I schedule things. Which is actually a huge responsibility; we hosted a comedy show on Halloween that was absolutely horrible and I’m still having to apologize to people for it.

I also handle all of the marketing, fundraisers, much of the tech, and did a lot of the initial cleaning myself. Also working with contractors on renovations, etc. For most of the time I’ve been the person checking in tickets at the front, cleaning up messes, doing some of the lighting design, etc. More recently I’ve been able to hire staff to help with much of this, but it’s definitely been a journey requiring a lot of work.

As for hiring a troop, mostly I’ve been focusing on renting out the venue to producers who are running their own shows including hiring their own performers. But we have self-produced a few shows including an upcoming Valentines cabaret. Once there’s less work to do on the venue itself, we will probably have more bandwidth for self-producing.

I’ve got more details at https://GreatStarTheater.org. If you’re ever in San Francisco, come say hi! Contact info is on the website. I also host boardgame nights there most Tuesday evenings, open to all.