Shotgun Players

Covering The San Francisco Bay Area & Sacramento Valley Since 2001

Shotgun Players • 1901 Ashby Ave, Berkeley, CA 94703

Plays • Musicals • Opera • Dance

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Current Production

• MAY 23 - JUN 21, 2026 •

Continuity / Play

For Tickets & Info:

A movie set becomes a pressure cooker where art, ego, panic, and planet-sized anxiety all squeeze into the same overheated room. A director is trying to hold together a big-budget climate disaster film while the actual climate crisis seems to be breathing down everyone’s neck, turning every take, argument, and production hiccup into something larger than show business. The comedy comes from the ridiculous machinery of filmmaking, where people can obsess over lighting, schedules, and emotional close-ups while the world outside the soundstage keeps insisting on being noticed. Characters clash, dodge responsibility, make bold speeches, and reveal just enough private chaos to keep the whole operation wobbling like a prop wall in a wind machine. Beneath the sharp jokes and backstage absurdity is a sly question about whether storytelling can move people to action, or whether “raising awareness” is sometimes just a prettier costume for standing still. It is fast, funny, anxious, and very alive, with the nervous crackle of a crew trying to save a scene while wondering who is saving the world before the next call sheet lands.

Coming Soon

• OPENS JUL 25, 2026 • Iphigenia in Splott / Play Iphigenia in Splott is a one-woman stage play by Welsh playwright Gary Owen, a raw modern-day monodrama rooted in tragedy. The story follows Effie, a young unemployed woman from a poor district in Cardiff, whose life is a blur of booze, casual sex, and hangovers. Nights become her escape from a bleak and unforgiving reality, while mornings hit hard with the weight of everything she is trying to outrun. One night she crosses paths with a wounded ex-soldier, and for a brief moment it feels like life might offer her a spark of connection and a reason to change course. As she opens up about her hopes and fears, the world around her, battered by austerity, neglect, and systemic decay, presses heavier than ever. Through her voice we witness desperation, longing, and the grit of real human survival: love, loss, regret, resilience. It is sharp, gritty, and heartbreakingly real, a powerful portrait of one woman fighting for dignity in a society that seems to have forgotten people like her.
• OPENS SEP 26, 2026 • The Fall Show / Dance The Fall Show is a dance theater piece that blends movement, spoken fragments, and imaginative staging into a dramatic collage that feels both modern and emotionally grounded. Created by Erika Chong Shuch and inspired by the stage directions of playwright Charles Mee, the production leans into experimental performance rather than a traditional plot. Instead of following a single storyline, the show layers choreography, poetic text, and striking visual moments to explore themes that emerge through mood and motion. Every scene behaves like a snapshot of human experience, using rhythm, gesture, and shifting perspectives to guide the audience through a world built more on feeling than on explanation. The result is a performance that plays like a living poem, inviting viewers to step into its atmosphere and draw their own meaning from the interplay of sound, movement, and image.
• OPENS NOV 28, 2026 • The Death of Meyerhold / Genre The Death of Meyerhold is a stage play written and directed by Mark Jackson that follows the remarkable and turbulent life of Vsevolod Meyerhold, the Russian theatre visionary whose bold ideas reshaped modern acting and staging. The production traces his journey from an ambitious young artist in the late 19th century to a groundbreaking director who challenged the limits of theatrical form through his biomechanics technique, a movement-based approach that emphasized precision, rhythm, and expressive physicality. As the play moves through years marked by revolution, shifting politics, and cultural upheaval, Meyerhold’s relentless push for artistic freedom places him at odds with rising authoritarian power. The tension grows as his creativity flourishes while the political world around him tightens, creating a gripping portrait of a man driven by vision yet surrounded by forces that view innovation with suspicion. Blending historical drama with inventive theatricality, the play invites the audience into a world where art and danger exist side by side, offering a compelling look at how creativity can thrive even as the walls close in.