The Journey….finding Little Boxes Theater….
Before the pandemic completely reshaped the world of live performance as we knew it, Teatro Mistral, the company that began as a tiny figment of my own whirling imagination, had begun to emerge from it’s nascent beginnings and was evolving into it’s own particular shape and direction. Flexible to the times, responsive to its San Francisco environment, a bit more malleable in its outlook on what and who would be included, I was proud of the productions we put forth Including a handful of concerts, an ongoing series of opera night’s at Martuni’s (Opera Cocktales) as well as a uniquely written production, Café Cantante, that included a bit of Spanish history, some outrageously named characters, and some glorious Spanish music and dance! We prided ourselves on performing in unusual locations around the Bay Area including, but not limited to, the first Italian opera performed in Chinatown and, recently, literally on the street, Stevenson street that is, for the Skybridge Art and Music Festival!!
On the way to creating Giuseppe Verdi’s grand opera Macbeth (the last production we did before Covid 19) I spent almost 6 months searching for a location!!
On and on. Some too big, some too small, many very expensive, some with acoustics that would not serve the un-amplified human voice, and, some frankly, that just didn’t feel flexible enough for what I wanted to create….I was on the edge of giving up on a location in San Francisco but had one final appointment….as fate would have it….my appointment was with Aaron and Kitty, the creators and artistic director/collaborators at Little Boxes Theater.
All I can tell you is You know it when you feel it! And I felt that this place was absolutely RIGHT!! Unusual? YES. Flexible? YES. High Ceilings? YES. Malleable to creative ideas? YES. Many diverse creative groups in its orbit? YES. Just the place I was looking for? ABSOLUTELY!
So, Join us in October as we explore the water planet Lissia in The Life we dream -an intergalactic love triangle based on
Puccini’s Tour de Force one act opera ‘Il Tabarro’.
available soon – Stay Tuned!