Beach Blanket Babylon
Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon, the nation's longest running musical revue
packed with hilarious spoofs of pop culture, spectacular costumes, outrageously
gigantic hats, and one show-stopping number after another, has performed over 34
years and continues to dazzle audiences at Club Fugazi in North Beach.
Val Diamond in the Skyline Hat.
© SSPI 2008 Photo credit:
Larry Merkle / David Allen
On June 7, 1974, Steve Silver produced a small show in the back room of the Savoy
Tivoli Restaurant in San Francisco. There were 214 seats crammed into a tiny space.
The floor was covered with two tons of sand; a lifeguard tore tickets at the door
and sprayed the backs of people's hand with Coppertone®. For $2.50, audience members
got a 45-minute show with four main performers, a chorus line of hula-dancing middle-aged
housewives doing card stunts, a band dressed as poodles, one lighting man on top
of a lifeguard stand manipulating Folger’s® coffee can lights, and a whole lots
of laughs.
The show was to run for six weeks. That was over 30 years ago…
After a brief stint in the fall of 1974 at Club Olympus, the show opened at Club
Fugazi where it has been running since. The show became an expanded version of the
Tivoli and Olympus shows, but now included more characters, grander sets, a larger
cast, and what was to become a trademark of the show, bigger hats!
Packed with hilarious spoofs of pop culture, spectacular costumes, outrageously
gigantic hats, and one show-stopping number after another, Beach Blanket Babylon
has performed over 34 years and continues to dazzle audiences at Club Fugazi in
San Francisco’s North Beach.
In Beach Blanket Babylon, Snow White continues her fast-paced musical journey around
the world in search of her “Prince Charming” and along the way encounters a star-studded,
ever-changing line-up of hilarious pop-culture characters.
Tickets range from $25 - $78 and can be purchased online at beachblanketbabylon.com, or by calling the box office at
415-421-4222. All performances take place at Club Fugazi, 678 Beach Blanket Babylon
Blvd. (Green St.) in the heart of San Francisco’s North Beach district. Shows run
on Wednesdays / Thursdays at 8 p.m., Fridays / Saturdays at 6:30 & 9:30 p.m., and
Sundays at 2 & 5 p.m. Photo I.D. required (due to liquor license restrictions).
Persons under 21 not admitted to evening performances. (Minors welcome at Sunday
matinees.)
“San Francisco’s best-known theatrical expression, a phenomenon as zany as its hometown!”
— Los Angeles Times