Taylor Mac is heading back to San Francisco's Curran Theatre for a single night this fall, bringing a brand-new concert called Tender Heart Revolution to the stage on Friday, November 6, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. The performance artist, writer, director, actor and singer has deep roots in the city, and this latest show marks another chapter in a relationship with the Curran that stretches back nearly a decade.
Described as a joyful, boundary-breaking new concert, the show is billed by the venue as a one-night-only event, according to us.atgtickets.com. The same listing calls Mac one of the great artists of our time and a true San Francisco icon. The Curran sits at 445 Geary Street, in the heart of the city's theater district.
A Bay Area Connection Rooted in the 1980s
Mac's ties to San Francisco go back decades. Raised in Stockton, California, Mac came to the city as a teenager for an AIDS march, according to the Curran ticketing page, which says that experience inspired the creation of A 24-Decade History of Popular Music. The ticketing site dates that formative march to 1983, though Mac has offered a different account elsewhere: in a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Mac said, “The impetus for this piece began in San Francisco, when I participated in the first AIDS walk in 1986.”
That sprawling project eventually became a 24-hour epic, performed in its entirety over four performances at the Curran in September 2017, per the venue's own account. It was also a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Times reported.
A Body of Work Built on Community and Identity
Mac's artistic throughline, according to the MacArthur Foundation, is the way fearlessly experimental works dramatize the power of theater as a space for building community. That thread runs through nearly everything Mac has brought to the Bay Area.
Mac's body of work includes The Lily's Revenge, Hir, Holiday Sauce and A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.
A Career of Extended Performance
The 24-hour marathon at the Curran remains part of Mac's body of work. Tender Heart Revolution brings Mac back to San Francisco for another performance.
