San Francisco's long-running drag tribute to The Golden Girls is heading back to the Curran Theatre this winter, and organizers say the 2026 run will swap in a fresh pair of sitcom episodes for its 21st year. The Golden Girls Live: The Christmas Episodes plays the Curran from December 4 through December 20, with presale tickets opening tomorrow at 11 a.m. Pacific time and general public sales following Wednesday at 10 a.m.
The announcement came today via ATG San Francisco, which confirmed the production will feature the episodes Family Affair and Big Daddy's Little Lady this year rather than repeating past selections. Family Affair follows Rose's daughter Bridget and Dorothy's son Michael as they discover they have more in common than expected, while Big Daddy's Little Lady centers on Blanche's reaction to Big Daddy announcing his marriage. According to BroadwayWorld, the show rotated last December's holiday run between What A Difference A Date Makes and The Artist before making this year's swap — a pattern the production has used to keep repeat audiences coming back each season.
A Show Born in a Hayes Valley Living Room
The production's roots go back two decades to a Hayes Valley living room parlor, where it started as a small underground staging before growing over 21 years into sold-out runs across San Francisco theaters, according to 48 Hills. That trajectory eventually carried the show from smaller venues like the Victoria Theatre on 16th Street to its 2024 debut at the 1,667-seat Curran, a jump BroadwayWorld's coverage frames as evidence of the tribute's growth into a major local institution.
Cast details released with the announcement show D'Arcy Drollinger returning as Rose, Matthew Martin as Blanche, and Holotta Tymes as Sophia, alongside pianist Tom Shaw and performer Manuel Caneri. Coco Peru will again play Dorothy, a role she took on after the death of drag icon Heklina, who originated the Dorothy Zbornak character starting in 2006 and performed it until she died in April 2023. Drollinger, who co-created the show, invited Coco Peru to step into the part to keep the tradition going, per the Oasis SF blog.
A Director With Deep Local Ties
Drollinger's role extends well beyond the Curran stage. In May 2023, then-Mayor London Breed named her San Francisco's inaugural Drag Laureate, an 18-month post that came with a $55,000 stipend to serve as an official city ambassador for LGBTQ+ culture and nightlife, according to the City of San Francisco. She also co-founded the SoMa nightclub Oasis with Heklina in 2015, a venue that Hoodline previously reported narrowly avoided permanent closure last December when philanthropists Mary and Mark Stevens made a multimillion-dollar gift to help purchase its building, following financial struggles that had put its future in doubt earlier in 2025.
Ticket access will run through the venue's usual tiers. Subscribers with ATG San Francisco accounts get first crack at tickets by logging in directly, presale buyers need the code SICILY starting Tuesday, and general public sales open Wednesday morning. All performances take place at the Curran, located at 445 Geary Street in Union Square.
New Ownership at a Historic Stage
The Curran itself has changed hands since last year's run. The 1922 theater was purchased by the San Francisco Giants in December 2025 for $13.66 million from longtime owner Carole Shorenstein Hays, according to SFist. It is unclear from available reporting whether the new ownership will affect future scheduling or programming at the venue, though this year's Golden Girls run is proceeding as planned.
Part of the show's staying power owes to a broader nostalgia wave for the original sitcom. National streaming interest in The Golden Girls has spiked repeatedly in recent years, hitting 11 million hours viewed on Hulu in April 2020 and surging to 384 million streams in a single week following star Betty White's death in December 2021, per BroadwayWorld's reporting. The stage production leans into that fandom directly: past opening weekends at the Curran have featured surprise appearances by Cindy Fee, the original singer of the show's theme song, who led audiences in sing-alongs of Thank You for Being a Friend during the 2024 and 2025 runs, according to SFist. Whether Fee will return for the 2026 opening weekend has not yet been announced.
Each performance is built around full reenactments of two television episodes, with live piano accompaniment filling the gaps during costume changes, a structure Local News Matters has described as central to how the show paces its comedy between scenes. For 2026, that format carries the added storyline of Dorothy and Rose teaming up to try to win a songwriting contest as part of the Family Affair episode, alongside the Big Daddy's Little Lady plot centered on Blanche.
