SF Mime Troupe: Behind The Scenes of Disruption

For more than 60 years, the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe has spoken truth to power with theater, satire, and community action. Join KALW for a special evening previewing their 2025 summer show: DISRUPTION – A New Musical Farce.

Writer, actor and director Michael Gene Sullivan, a long time creative force within the SF Mime Troupe will give a glimpse of the new show with taped scenes and musical numbers, followed by an intimate onstage conversation with KALW executive producer Ben Trefny. Together, they’ll explore the making of DISRUPTION, SF Mime Troupe’s legacy of political theater, and what it means to provoke laughter and action in 2025.

DISRUPTION - A Musical Farce asks the political question: as the United States slides towards authoritarianism will San Francisco become a center of resistance, or just a corporate suburb of Silicon Valley?In a city where nothing is more important than “innovation” Augie – a son of immigrants whose life is all about helping his neighbors navigate an increasingly underfunded system. Meanwhile a tech genius is all about making a city attractive to the right kind of people. Who wouldn’t want that? Soon San Francisco will be a suburb of Silicon Valley - and just in time for the president’s upcoming visit. But if the city is poised to be a calm, efficient paradise why is everything suddenly on… FIRE!

The mission of the San Francisco Mime Troupe is to create and produce theater that presents a working-class analysis of the events that shape our society, that exposes social and economic injustice, that demands revolutionary change on behalf of working people, and to present this analysis before the broadest possible audience with artistry and humor.The collective of the San Francisco Mime Troupe exists not only to create this activist art but also to embody our ideals of combating the fragmentation of the working class: we are a democratically run, multi-ethnic, multi-generational, multi-cultural, gender-balanced theater of social justice that by its very existence sustains a vision of community governance of, by, and for the people.

Michael Gene Sullivan is an Actor/Writer/Director/Activist based in SF. He is an alum of the Playwrights Foundation, and has been awarded both a Djerassi Arts Center Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship as a dramatist. Michael is also Resident Playwright for the Tony and OBIE award-winning (and always revolutionary, never ever silent) SF Mime Troupe, where he has written or co-written over 30 plays, including 1600 Transylvania Avenue, Too Big To Fail, Freedomland, Making a Killing, Back To The Way Thing Were, the Tales of the Resistance radio/podcast series. As an actor Michael has performed at theaters throughout the Bay Area (including at all four of the Bay Area’s Tony-winning theaters), has toured nationally and internationally - including off-Broadway and at the Kennedy Center.

Ben Trefny, KALW's Executive Producer, has been part of the KALW family since 2004. As Executive News Editor and then News Director, he helped our news department win numerous regional and national awards for long- and short-form journalism. He also helped create numerous training programs — for teenagers, incarcerated people, and early-career journalists — and have taught hundreds of audio producers. He served as interim Executive Director for nearly two years.

His work is currently focused on creating original live events, programming, and building partnerships with like-minded organizations. He oversees KALW’s community space at 220 Montgomery Street in downtown San Francisco where he organizes town hall conversations, film screenings, literature readings, concerts, and fundraisers. He also curates the 111 Minna Street stage for Downtown First Thursdays.

There is a $10 - $20 sliding scale suggested donation for this event. Nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.

Please become a KALW member today and receive your first drink on us at all 220 Montgomery events.

📍 220 Montgomery St., San Francisco, 2 blocks from BART/MUNI

🚪 Reception doors open at 1:00

🗣️ Program begins at 2:00

🆓 The event is free with an RSVP — and you are welcome to donate what you want

Please note:

• The event space is just to the left of the main entrance to the Mills Building at 220 Montgomery Street
• We recommend taking BART/MUNI, exiting at Montgomery, and walking two blocks north
• Ride-shares can drop off and pick up directly in front of the venue
• If you drive, there are several garages within two blocks of the event location; free street parking is available across from the venue starting at 7 PM.