Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 00:52:00

One San Francisco theatre has kept the same name for over a century, and in late 2025 it gained the most unexpected owner in American theatre - a baseball team. The Curran Theatre at 445 Geary Street, between Taylor and Mason in the Theatre District, opened in February 1922, built by and named for theatrical producer Homer Curran. It began as a Shubert house, later showcased Theatre Guild productions, and became closely associated with the San Francisco Civic Light Opera, whose star-led seasons made the 1,667-seat house the city's premier musical stage for decades. When the Civic Light Opera shifted to the Orpheum in 1977, Carole Shorenstein Hays and James M. Nederlander took over the Curran and launched their Best of Broadway series - opening with John Raitt in the national tour of Shenandoah and the West Coast debut of Annie - the programming engine that grew into SHN and defined touring theatre in San Francisco for a generation. Shorenstein Hays bought the building outright in 2010 for 16.6 million dollars, and after leaving SHN in 2015 she made the Curran her sole focus. The theatre closed that September for a comprehensive renovation - new seat upholstery, carpets, mechanical and electrical systems, expanded lobbies with a new bar and accessible restrooms - while an Under Construction series seated audiences on the bare stage. The house reopened on 25 January 2017 with the musical Fun Home, and later landed the San Francisco engagement of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, one of the biggest theatrical bookings in the city's modern history. In December 2025 Shorenstein Hays sold the theatre to the San Francisco Giants, with the Ambassador Theatre Group continuing to manage operations - an ownership twist that keeps the century-old house programmed with touring Broadway, concerts and special engagements. The setting completes the experience: the Curran shares its block with the American Conservatory Theater's Geary stage, two minutes from Union Square, its 1922 facade and gilded auditorium still doing nightly service in the densest theatre district west of Chicago.