San Francisco’s Pier 39 is known for its chorus of barking sea lions. This week, however, it was the backdrop for a different kind of performance.
Karen Mason, a venerable presence on the Broadway stage, took time between her two-night residency at Feinstein’s at the Hotel Nikko to visit the waterfront’s most famous residents. Standing before the crowded docks, she delivered an impromptu serenade, reworking the lyrics of the title song from the classic musical “Hello, Dolly!” to suit her flippered audience.
The exchange, which combined New York theatricality with Northern California’s natural charm, was captured by a local CBS television crew and later documented by Mason on social media.
“I sang to the sea lions on Pier 39,” she wrote to her Instagram followers. “I had so much fun!”
The sea lions have been a hallmark of the city’s tourist economy for more than three decades. They first began arriving at Pier 39’s K-Dock shortly after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. But what started as a small group grew into a colony of hundreds by the spring of 1990, eventually leading the marina to relinquish the docks to the animals permanently.
Wildlife experts note that the population is highly transient. Depending on the migration of herring and other food sources within the San Francisco Bay, the number of sea lions can swell into the thousands or thin out to a vocal few.
Their population now fluctuates seasonally, sometimes reaching into the thousands as they follow food sources in the bay.
Mason’s stop in San Francisco is a brief chapter in a career defined by high-profile stages.
A frequent headliner at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, she is perhaps best known to theatergoers for originating the role of Tanya in the Broadway production of “Mamma Mia!” Her extensive résumé also includes leading turns in “Sunset Boulevard,” “Hairspray” and “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway.”
This article originally published at Broadway star serenades Pier 39 sea lions during San Francisco visit.