This story aired in the February 6, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.
If you were to imagine a mime, would they make any sound? Probably not.
But, The San Francisco Mime troupe has been as loud as foghorns since 1959. This revolutionary theatre group raises their voices with bombastic slapstick.
And as we're about to find out…that is actually the definition of mime.
Click the play button above to listen!
Story Transcript:
Sound of ensemble milling around rehearsal space
REPORTER: It’s a crisp November afternoon and I'm in the heart of San Francisco's Mission District at the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s studio.
MICHAEL GENE SULLIVAN/BACKGROUND CHATTER : who's not here? Jed? He's here. I'm here. Jed's not, oh there he is. I'm sorry, maybe. So I want to pick up, Hey, so how'd the show go? Good. Good. You know how?
REPORTER: The Mime Troupe is known for its free or pay-what-you-can summer performances in city parks. Today though, they’re rehearsing for a rare indoor winter performance.
The studio is part Black Box theater, part storage space, part museum. A set that looks like an abandoned factory takes center stage. Stage left a guitar, mandolin, and snare drum sit waiting for action. Artifacts of the troupe’s 65 year history, fill every nook and cranny: masks, posters, photos. A gigantic pirate puppet seems to stand guard over it all. The cast hangs out and the pianist warms up until finally it's showtime, rehearsal is about to start.
SULLIVAN: Karen where exactly are we?
KAREN RUNK: Page 38, we just did the this way, that way, this way, behind the couch with Brian. Right.
REPORTER: Call it coincidence or call it fate but the building we’re in, was once a factory warehouse. This is apt because the Troupe is a collective that intentionally champions workers rights, a major theme in Red Carol, the play the Troupe is rehearsing today
ACTORS: That's a power that's a power that must rule in every land One industrial union grand.
ACTOR/BRIAN RIVERA: Used to be folks were proud to You should be folks who are proud to be workers. Proud to live off our own bodies and sweat. Do not live off somebody else's.
SULLIVAN: Say all that again. You're rushing. Don't rush.
REPORTER:That resolute working class pride and defiance you're hearing livens up the Mime Troupe’s slogan, “Never silent, always revolutionary.” Playwright and director Michael Gene Sullivan says this vocal dissent throws off newcomers because of the word mime in their name.
SULLIVAN: People, every summer they'll go, Oh my goodness, I didn't know you guys talked. It's like, well now you
REPORTER: Michael schooled me on mime. He says, silent mime is only one type of mime.
SULLIVAN: Mime is the exaggeration of everyday life and story and song. we're doing plays that are loud and big, what in England they call a pantomime.What I tell people sometimes is, it's like a Broadway show, only it has a point.
REPORTER: The ensemble is a mix of veterans and newer collaborators and everyone plays multiple roles - which is typical for a troupe show. Musicians like Guinevere Q, double as sound effects engineers. She shows me a wooden cylinder she’s cut slats into…it’s a wind machine
Guinevere Q: So this guy spins and when you put the canvas on it it makes a windy sound and you can make it really windy or just kind of windy.
Sound of wind machine
REPORTER: The Mime troupe was founded in 1959 and started doing outdoor theatre a few years later. But San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Commission denied them a permit on grounds of obscenity.
ACTOR/RIVERA: Our daughter has to work on Christmas Day? Her boss must be some kind of heartless mother...
SULLIVAN: Okay, so close. But, Mother.. Where that you've got to hear him going
REPORTER: That language you hear in today's rehearsal is partly what the city off back in the day. In those days, the mime troupe called attention to socio-political issues with rowdy entertainment they called guerrilla theater. Today, though, they try to challenge the audience to engage and take political action.
SULLIVAN: I don't want to do a show where the revolution happens on stage, because it doesn't leave the audience anything to do. There's always work for the audience
REPORTER:The Troupe’s modern influences include Charlie Chaplin, Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce. In another twist of synchronicity, Lenny Bruce recorded his albums in this very building when it housed Fantasy Records. Michael says the type of theater the Troupe does dates all the way back to ancient history in Rome and Greece.
SULLIVAN: The traditional commedia companies Troops of Italian actors and French actors would come into a town, find out what was going on in the town, who was in charge of the town, the revolutionary thought of the town, incorporate it into a play, do it really fast, pass the hat, get some money, and get the heck out of town, before the rich people figured out they were there.
REPORTER: The mime troupe gets their message across by balancing political satire with comedy and music.
SULLIVAN: We use comedy to disarm the audience to crack their heads open so we can get other stuff in there. Comedy is a great way to get people to relax just a little bit and have just enough objectivity that their minds can open to new ideas.
REPORTER: An example is the song Day One from last summer’s show “American Dreams ”…
Day One plays
REPORTER: If comedy cracks heads open, music can funnel in the new ideas. Here’s Daniel Savio, the troops resident composer and lyricist,
DANIEL SAVIO: Music makes the audience very receptive to what we have to say. So, they're enjoying themselves, but hopefully not so much that they just lay back and let it wash over them. Hopefully they're leaning in and really paying close attention.
REPORTER: In another bit of synchronicity, Daniel is the son of Mario Savio, the activist who played a pivotal role in the Berkeley Free Speech movement. But Daniel says his activism is different from his father’s.
DANIEL SAVIO: He was very much an activist and my activism is through my music, through the work that I do with the troupe.
REPORTER: The Mime Troupe is upholding the legacy of the Free Speech Movement through its plays and its training programs for young actors and playwrights. But that legacy is getting harder to pass on.
SULLIVAN: the difficulty of making a living in San Francisco, being able to pay rent here as an artist, it means that our casts have gotten smaller and smaller, and our band has gotten smaller and smaller, And we ask for donations all the time from folks after shows.
REPORTER: This challenge is captured in Left to Rot, another song from the show American Dreams
Left to Rot plays
REPORTER: Another difficulty is that there are fewer people in the audience to pass that hat around to
SULLIVAN: We've lost huge amounts of audience, as the demographic of the Bay Area and San Francisco has shifted so much. And as more and more working class people have pushed out of the city.
REPORTER: Michael says that unlike some theaters, the Mime Troupe refuses corporate sponsorship in order to uphold the principles they advocate in their art.
SULLIVAN: We want to survive, but we are not going to, change our mission or sell out our ethics better to, die on your feet rather than live on your knees, in our case, it's on stage.
REPORTER: Speaking truth to power isn’t always easy, but for the Mime Troupe the goal isn’t just to entertain, but to change the world.