Each week we'll be featuring an especially interesting event in the neighborhood, based on the event submissions we receive and what we hear about while we're out on the beat. If you want to be considered for next week, please submit your event here.
The Christmas holidays may be over, but there's still some end-of-year cheer to be had near Union Square, where the British tradition of holiday "panto" theater finishes out its Cinderella run at Marines' Memorial Theater (609 Sutter St.)
The show's British-born creator, Patricia Miller, says that the family-friendly tradition is big across the pond. Suitable for kids and adults, the performance blends vaudeville, theater, and audience interaction with a healthy dose of drag—perfect for San Francisco.
Miller brought the panto tradition to the city three years ago, as a mother who felt priced out of traditional holiday entertainment like the SF Ballet's annual Nutcracker production. "I wanted to make something that was affordable for families to have that big special day out to the theater," she said.
Cinderella, which will stage its final matinee shows this Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, comes "laced with a lot of humor that the adults get, contemporary jokes, songs, musical aspects, and a lot of booing and hissing for the villain and cheering for Cinderella," said Miller, who stresses that audience interaction is part of the fun. Look out for local cabaret actress Kitten on the Keys as the fairy godmother, drag queen Peggy L'Eggs as the evil stepmother, and mice, "because Americans love mice in their Cinderella story."
Read on for more Union Square events designed to help close out 2015 in style.
