Tickets
Menu

Barbecue

Barbecue by Robert O'Hara

Barbecue by Robert O'Hara

Bay Area Premiere

September 26 – November 11, 2017

Tickets: from $35

Run time: 1 hour, 30 minutes plus one intermission

 BUY TICKETS

SEE ALL DATES & SHOWTIMES

OR CALL 415.677.9596 FOR TICKETS AND INFO.

Barbecue

Written by Robert O’Hara

Directed by Margo Hall

“A smokin’ satire! A wildly entertaining Bay Area premiere at San Francisco Playhouse.” – Jean Schiffman, San Francisco Examiner

“SF Playhouse’s Barbecue sizzles … this cast pulls off this whole audacious enterprise beautifully and keeps the flames of Barbecue high and hot.” – Chad Jones, Theaterdogs

“Clever, loads of fun, with plenty of jaw-dropping moments.” – Gilly Lloyd, Arts Preview

Read More Reviews

PLAY DETAILS

The hard-partying, foul-mouthed O’Mallery family is staging an intervention for their drug-addicted sister, Barbara. With a plan inspired by reality TV, they have disguised their meeting as a family barbecue in the park—but soon it’s the whole family’s problems that are in the spotlight. Barbecue overturns our presumptions about race, poverty, and the American family in hilarious and incisive fashion.

THE CAST

Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe
Image is not available
Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe
ADLEAN
Jennie Brick
Image is not available
Jennie Brick
ADLEAN
Margo Hall
Image is not available
Margo Hall
BARBARA
Susi Damilano
Image is not available
Sally Dana
BARBARA
Clive Worsley
Image is not available
Clive Worsley
JAMES T
Adrian Roberts
Image is not available
Adrian Roberts
JAMES T
Anne Darragh
Image is not available
Anne Darragh
LILLIE ANNE
Halili Knox
Image is not available
Halili Knox
LILLIE ANNE
Kehinde Koyejo
Image is not available
Kehinde Koyejo
MARIE
Teri Whipple
Image is not available
Teri Whipple
MARIE (u/s Lillie Anne)
previous arrow
next arrow

PRODUCTION PHOTOS by Jessica Palopoli

BILL ENGLISH talks Barbecue

Bill English Barbecue interview

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association

THE CREATIVE TEAM

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Robert O’Hara has recently released his Film Writing and Directing debut, THE INHERITANCE. He received the 2010 NAACP Best Director Award for his direction of Eclipsed by Danai Guiria. He received 2010 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play for ANTEBELLUM and an OBIE Award for his Direction of the World Premiere of the critically acclaimed In The Continuum at Primary Stages. He wrote and directed the World Premiere of Insurrection: Holding History at the New York Shakespeare Festival, the piece received the Oppenheimer Award for Best New American Play and was subsequently published by both TCG and Dramatist Play Service. He Directed the World Premiere of Brother/Sister Plays (Part 2), Co-Production at McCarter Theater/ New York Shakespeare Festival. His recent Stage Directing: Tough Titty, Magic Theater. Eclipsed, CTG/Kirk Douglas Theater. A Life In The Theater, Alliance Theater. Brother Size, City Theater. His new play Etiquette of Vigilance was produced in the Steppenwolf First Look Festival 2010. ACT/Zeum recently produced his play, Good Breeding. His play, BOOTYCANDY, under his direction, was presented at the Woolly Mammoth Theater. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at NYU/TISCH School of the Arts.

San Francisco Playhouse’s production of Barbecue is made possible by Executive Producer William J. Gregory; Producers Fred Karren & Leslie Karren, Morgan & Michael Callahan, and their parents Sharon & Samuel Muir, and Arne & Gail Wagner; as well as Associate Producers Linda Brewer, Harry & Kay Rabin, Loni & Bob Dantzler, Margaret Sheehan, Valerie Barth, Janet & William McAllister, Michael Levy & Michael Golden.

This production is dedicated to the memory of Beth Karren, a longtime patron, and friend to San Francisco Playhouse

San Francisco Playhouse | 450 Post St. Floor 2M, San Francisco CA 94102 | (415) 677-9596

Jennie Brick

Jennie Brick (Adlean) Barbecue marks Jennie’s debut at SF Playhouse and she couldn’t be happier. Special thanks to Lauren, Margo, and the entire creative team on and off stage who have made this a truly wonderful experience. Other recent roles include Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast, Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Eugenie and Judge in Ondine at Sutro, Yente in Fiddler on the Roof, Leonata in Much Ado About Nothing, Mattie Fae in August: Osage County, Liz in The Book of Liz, Luella in Why Torture is Wrong, and Silda in Other Desert Cities. Jennie has performed with Bay Area theatre companies including Shotgun Players, Berkeley Playhouse, TheatreFIRST, Custom Made Theatre, DivaFest, Town Hall Theatre and We Players. Love and thanks to B, as always.

×

Margo Hall

Margo Hall* (Director, Barbara) is an award winning actor/director/playwright. She has performed and directed in theaters throughout the Bay Area. She directed Red Velvet and The Story for SF Playhouse. She most recently directed Brownsville Song, B-Side for Tray for Shotgun Players, where she also co- directed Bulrusher with Ellen Sebastian Chang. She is a founding member of Campo Santo, and has directed, performed and collaborated on several new plays with artists such as Naomi Iizuka, Jessica Hagedorn, Phillip Kan Gotanda, and Octavio Solis. She debuted as a director with The World Premiere of Joyride, from the novel Grand Avenue by Greg Sarris, for Campo Santo. The production won the Critics Circle Award and SF Weekly Black Box Award for Best Director. She also co-directed Mission Indians with Nancy Benjamin, The Trail of Her Inner Thigh with Rhodessa Jones, Hotel Angulo, and Simpatico for Campo Santo. Other directing credits include Thurgood for Lorraine Hansberry Theater, and Friend of my Youth and Sonny’s Blues for Word for Word. She is also a professor at Chabot College where she directed Fabulation, Hamlet Blood in the Brain, The Trojan Women, It Falls, SPUNK, Ragtime, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Polaroid Stories at UC Berkeley.

×

Susi Damilano

Susi Damilano* (Barbara, Producing Director) is co-founder and Producing Director of the San Francisco Playhouse. She is a five-time recipient of the Bay Area Theatre Critic Circle (BATCC) award for Best Female Performance in Abigail’s Party, Harper Regan, Bug, Six Degrees of Separation, and Reckless. At the Playhouse she has performed leading roles in The Roommate, Red Velvet, Tree, Bauer, Abigail’s Party, Harper Regan, Coraline, Slasher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Landscape of the Body, First Person Shooter, Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, The Crucible, Kimberly Akimbo, Our Town and The Smell of the Kill. Directing credits include Playhouse productions of Noises Off, She Loves Me, Stage Kiss, Company, Stupid Fucking Bird, Into the Woods, A Behanding in Spokane, Den of Thieves and Wirehead** ; the West Coast Premieres of Honey Brown Eyes**, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Coronado, The Mystery Plays and Roulette and the world premieres of Steven Dietz’s On Clover Road, Rhett Rossi’s From Red to Black and Daniel Heath’s Seven Days in the Sandbox Series. (**nominated for BATCC Directing award.)

×

Halili Knox

Halili Knox* (Lillie Anne) is a versatile performing artist and Bay Area native who most recently appeared in This Land Was Made at Ubuntu Theater Project in Oakland (proud Company Member). She has also appeared in The Gospel of Loving Kindness at Ubuntu (Theatre Bay Area Award nomination, Outstanding Female Actor); And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi (Chorus) at Cutting Ball (Bay Area Critics Circle Award, Best Ensemble); The Story (Pat Johnson) at SF Playhouse; Chasing Mehserle (Willie) at Intersection for the Arts; and Fabulation (Mother) at Lorraine Hansberry. Halili is also an Emmy nominated television host who made her national debut on HGTV and currently produces and hosts original programs for San Francisco Government Television. In addition to stage and screen work, Halili has performed locally and internationally as a jazz and blues vocalist.

×

Teri Whipple

Teri Whipple (Marie,  u/s Lillie Anne) is thrilled to be acting in her first play with SF Playhouse!  She holds a degree in Drama from San Francisco State University, and has also studied at A.C.T. and Shakespeare and Company. Some of her favorite credits include Catherine in Rapture, Blister, Burn at Custom Made Theatre (of which she is a member), Donna in Harbor at New Conservatory Theatre Center, and Chrysothemis in Iphigenia and Other Daughters with WE Players – the first theatrical play to be performed on Alcatraz Island. Teri is also a finalist for this year’s Theatre Bay Area Titan Award.  Much love to Jake! 

×

Kehinde Koyejo

Kehinde Koyejo* (Marie) was last seen in Word for Word’s All Aunt Hagar’s Children-Paris Tour and BACCE / BRAVA Theater’s production of Booty Candy. Other theater credits include We Are Proud to Present (Just Theater, CA), “Best Ensemble” Theater Bay Area Award winner Sweet Maladies (BACCE, CA), For Colored Girls (Project 1Voice & Lorraine Hansberry Theater, CA), The Firefly Project (Magic Theater, CA) Philip Kan Gotanda’s The Jamaican Wash (Lorraine Hansberry Theater, CA), Serenade (LaMama Theater, NY), Joe Turner Come and Gone and The Wiz (Crystal Image Theater, NY), In The Wine Time (The National Black Theater, NY), and Bat Boy, the Musical (Ray of Light Theater, CA).  Ms. Koyejo is a member of the Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience (BACCE). She earned a B.F.A. in Acting from Pace University, NY and a M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. 

×

Adrian Roberts

Adrian Roberts* (James T) is thrilled to be back at SF Playhouse where he was last seen as Daniel Jamison in First Person Shooter. Mr. Roberts was last seen as Wille in Master Harold And The Boys at the Aurora Theater. Other Bay Area credits include King Basillio in Life is A Dream at Cal Shakes, Claudius in Hamlet at Cal Shakes, Charles Boyd in Pen/Man/Ship at the Magic Theater, Gabriel/Troy in Fences at Marin Theater Co., Martin Luther King Jr. In The Mountaintop, Gabriel in Breakfast With Mugabe at Aurora Theater Co. Mr. Roberts regional credits include Ken in The Playboy of The West Indies at Lincoln Center, Booster in Jitney at American Stage, three seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Commander Osembenga in Ruined (La Holla Playhouse, Huntington Theater, Berkley Rep) among many others. Mr. Roberts has appeared in television shows Scrubs, Criminal Minds, Brothers & Sisters, Trauma and the Sci-Fi channel movie Vampires Out For Blood. Mr. Roberts is a graduate of American Conservatory Theater MFA program.

×

Clive Worsley

Clive Worsley is the Director of Artistic Learning at the California Shakespeare Theater. As an award winning actor he has appeared on such Bay Area stages as Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theatre, Center Rep, Central Works, Magic Theater, Marin Theater Company, SF Playhouse, Shotgun Players, TheatreFirst, TheatreWorks, Town Hall Theater and many more. He sits on the Advisory Council of the U.C. Theater, and the board of directors of Notes4Hope, a non-profit organization that produces live music events to benefit Breast Cancer treatment and prevention. He is delighted to return to the SF Playhouse stage.

×

“A play that walks the fine line between the horrors of addiction and how it affects everyone and yet still be hilarious – what an achievement.” – Raul Gallyot, Airwaves
 
“A Smokin’ Satire! A wildly entertaining Bay Area premiere at San Francisco Playhouse.” – Jean Schiffman, San Francisco Examiner
 
“SF Playhouse’s Barbecue sizzles…This cast pulls off this whole audacious enterprise beautifully and keeps the flames of Barbecue high and hot.” – Chad Jones, TheatreDogs
 
“Clever, loads of fun, with plenty of jaw-dropping moments.” – Gilly Lloyd, Arts Preview
 
“As an ensemble, they have found a way to address a key challenge facing actors...It’s affecting – and thought-provoking” – Patrick Thomas, Two on the Aisle
 
“★★★★ Thought-provoking, raunchy, clever and incisive social commentary about a family(s) screwed up by drugs and alcohol.” – Kedar Adour, For All Events
 
“Strong performances by the talented cast mesmerize us…Barbecue delights with satire and laughter” – Robert Gardner, Theatrius 
 
“Full of twists that upturn the audience’s entire understanding of what’s going on, over and over again.” – Sam Hurwitt, The Mercury News
 
“Themes and conceits swirl in ‘Barbecue'” – Lily Janiak, SF Gate
×