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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Next Production

• MAR 21 - APR 19, 2026 •

The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? / Genre

For Tickets & Info:

The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is a tragicomedy by Edward Albee that dives straight into the polished life of Martin, a celebrated architect whose world looks flawless from the outside: successful career, devoted wife, bright teenage son, and a milestone birthday that should feel triumphant. But everything tilts when Martin makes a confession that doesn’t just crack the surface of his family’s stability; it blows it wide open. He reveals he has fallen deeply, bewilderingly in love with Sylvia, who happens to be a goat. What begins with an almost absurd sense of disbelief slowly tightens into a deeply emotional and unsettling exploration of love, loyalty, and the limits of social and moral boundaries. As conversations spiral and relationships strain, the play draws the audience into a razor sharp examination of how fragile “normal” really is and how one unexpected truth can unravel everything people believe about themselves and each other. Albee blends dark humor with painful honesty, creating a story that invites curiosity, discomfort, and fascination all at once, pulling viewers into a world where nothing is as neatly defined as it seems and every assumption is up for debate.

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Coming Soon

• OPENS MAY 23, 2026 • Continuity / Play Continuity, a play by Bess Wohl, is a darkly funny contemporary drama that unfolds on the chaotic soundstage of a film shoot spiraling into confusion. The story follows a small, exhausted movie crew racing to finish one crucial scene before daylight fades. They are trying to create the illusion of an Arctic ice floe even though they are actually standing in the blazing New Mexico desert. The film they are making is an eco-thriller built around an environmental warning, with an eco-terrorist's bomb meant to jolt the world awake about climate change. As the director battles clock pressure, clashing actors, a restless screenwriter, and constant script changes, the production's messy reality begins to overshadow its noble goals. What starts as a comedic backstage scramble gradually reveals deeper questions about artistic responsibility, the limits of good intentions, and the uneasy space between entertainment and meaningful action. Through humor, tension, and rising chaos, the play invites the audience to think about how stories shape our understanding of the world and how easily even the most passionate messages can get lost in the noise.
• OPENS JULY 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 SEPTEMBER 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 NOVEMBER 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.