Darren Criss is coming home. The San Francisco-born Tony winner will play a one-night-only concert at the Curran Theatre on November 14, at 7:30 p.m., marking a rare chance for hometown fans to see him perform live in the city where he got his start.
The show, titled An Evening with Darren Criss, was announced by BroadwaySF on Facebook. ATG San Francisco subscribers get first access to tickets through a presale beginning today at 2 p.m. PT using the code TEENAGEDREAM, and subscribers must log into their accounts to access that early window. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Thursday, at 10 a.m. PT.
Criss arrives in San Francisco fresh off the biggest win of his stage career. At the 78th Annual Tony Awards in June 2025, the actor took home Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for playing Oliver in Maybe Happy Ending, which also won Best Musical, according to Theatrely. Criss also produced the show, which swept six Tony Awards that night.
A Hometown Kid Who Made Good on Broadway
Criss was born in San Francisco in 1987 and came up through the city's own Catholic school system, attending Stuart Hall for Boys and St. Ignatius College Preparatory before cutting his teeth in regional Bay Area theater, according to the New York Theatre Guide. He performed with 42nd Street Moon and the American Conservatory Theater long before Broadway audiences knew his name.
This isn't the first time Criss has treated San Francisco as the launchpad for a major career moment. He returned to his hometown in October 2016 to kick off the national tour of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre, following his run in the title role on Broadway in 2015, per the theater guide's reporting. That homecoming came after he had already broken through nationally in 2009 as co-creator and star of StarKid Productions' viral hit A Very Potter Musical, then found global fame in 2010 as Blaine Anderson on Fox's Glee, per the same account.
Criss's résumé stretches well beyond the stage and the McKinley High choir room. In 2018, he won both a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for his lead performance as serial killer Andrew Cunanan in FX's The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, according to Wikipedia's entry on the actor. He's also spent a decade building live musical events off Broadway, having co-founded Elsie Fest, an annual outdoor showtunes festival in New York City, back in 2015.
The Curran Enters a New Era Under Giants Ownership
The concert also lands at a venue mid-transformation. In December 2025, the San Francisco Giants acquired the historic, 1,667-seat Curran Theatre from longtime producer Carole Shorenstein Hays for $13.66 million, though day-to-day stage management stayed with BroadwaySF, as CelebrityAccess reported. Hoodline covered the sale in detail in a piece on the Giants' Curran purchase.
Built in 1922 in Union Square's Theater District, the Curran has hosted more than 8,000 performances over its history, including pre-Broadway engagements for hits like Wicked. Criss's concert joins a run of recent homecoming-style bookings at the venue, following a comedy date from viral performer Becky Robinson and a hometown show from Sacramento-rooted musician Chelsea Wolfe.
The Touring Show Is Coming, But Not With Criss
Local theater fans hoping to see Maybe Happy Ending itself won't have to wait too much longer, though Criss won't be part of that production. BroadwaySF announced in August that the first North American tour of the musical will play San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre from June 29 through July 18, 2027, starring Steven Huynh and Claire Kwon rather than Criss, a development Hoodline detailed in its report on the Orpheum's 2027 booking.
That makes November's Curran concert the primary opportunity for Bay Area audiences to see Criss perform live in his hometown before then. The show he starred in continues to make history in New York: in July, Maybe Happy Ending became the longest-running production in the history of Broadway's Belasco Theatre after its 688th performance, breaking an 89-year-old venue record previously held by Dead End, according to BroadwayWorld. The musical premiered on Broadway in November 2024.
