{"id":494303,"date":"2026-10-13T04:38:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T04:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/494303\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T04:38:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T04:38:29","slug":"musicals-return-to-sfsu-with-mr-burns-a-post-electric-play-golden-gate-xpress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/494303\/","title":{"rendered":"Musicals return to SFSU with \u2018Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play\u2019 \u2013 Golden Gate Xpress"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time since spring 2023<\/a>, musical theatre hits the stage at San Francisco State University\u00a0 this week as the SFSU Players Club makes their final preparations for Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play.<\/p>\n

The production, co-directed by fourth-year theatre arts major Zeno Zacks and second-year cinema major Avayna Glass, will be performed on Tuesday, Oct. 13, and Thursday, Oct. 15, in The Little Theatre in the Creative Arts building. Glass\u2019 previous work with Zacks as the assistant director to the Player\u2019s Club\u2019s fall 2025 performance of \u201cThe Seagull\u201d sees revived synergy in \u201cMr Burns : A Post-Electric Play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we bounce off of each other fairly well,\u201d Zacks said. \u201cThere have been a lot of times where I feel like I\u2019ve seen Avayna give a note that I was a second away from giving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Axel Tomelloso sings as Bart Simpson during a rehearsal of Act 3 of \u201cMr Burns: A Post-Electric Play\u201d at The Little Theatre in the Creative Arts building on Oct. 6, 2026. (Chad Church \/ Golden Gate Xpress) <\/a><\/p>\n

A testament to the pair\u2019s creative connection, Glass reiterated the same sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd vice versa,\u201d Glass said. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of moments where there\u2019ll be something I have no idea what we should do and then he\u2019ll be like, \u2018I have an idea,\u2019 and I\u2019m like, \u2018thank God.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the play\u2019s title refers to Mr. Burns, the decrepit nuclear plant owner from \u2018The Simpsons\u2019, the show goes much deeper than a shallow depiction of the long-running cartoon.<\/p>\n

According to first-year English literature major Iphis Abram\u2019s dramaturgical analysis<\/a>, \u201cAnne Washburn\u2019s \u2018Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play\u2019 examines the process of oral storytelling not in a pre-writing society, but a post-apocalyptic, post-electric one. The stories being told are not born from oral tradition, but rather episodes of \u2018The Simpsons,\u2019 an animated TV show, reconstructed from memory now that the original recordings are lost.<\/p>\n

The play opens shortly after a nuclear disaster has destroyed much of the world and diminished the human population from over seven billion to a few hundred million. A group of survivors sit around a campfire telling stories of a world that no longer is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As they sit around the campfire, each character is shouldering the burdens of losing loved ones. They attempt to give each other some sense of normalcy by remembering songs and television shows that they no longer have access to. Matt, a survivor played by fourth-year theatre arts major Dominic Terrado, leads the group in recalling Season 5 Episode 2 of \u2018The Simpsons\u2019 titled \u2018Cape Feare.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[Matt is] someone who\u2019s just trying to grasp onto whatever is familiar because the world ended,\u201d Terrado said. \u201cHe\u2019s the type of person that just latches onto anything to give him some semblance of what the world was like. And if that means \u2018The Simpsons,\u2019 then that means \u2018The Simpsons.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Christian Dulce, Amanda Farmer and Clara Pic\u00f3 Salort (left to right) take the stage for a rehearsal of Act 2 of \u201cMr Burns: A Post-Electric Play\u201d at The Little Theatre in the Creative Arts building on Oct. 6, 2026. (Chad Church \/ Golden Gate Xpress) <\/a><\/p>\n

Act 1\u2019s group retelling of the episode is filled with imperfections that make their recollections feel human. As they piece together a familiar story from memory, the shared experience gives them a way to connect with one another in a world that has been irrevocably changed.<\/p>\n

That connection eventually grows beyond the campfire. Act 2 follows Matt and the other survivors as they form a traveling theater company, sharing stories from the past with others while building a community of their own.<\/p>\n

As the group grows closer, its members begin to find a sense of normalcy in their new lives. For Jenny, portrayed by theater arts master\u2019s student Amanda Farmer, that means navigating the unfamiliar experience of building a life and finding love after the apocalypse.<\/p>\n

\u201cJenny survived the apocalypse, but was separated from her family. She is creating a life for herself in this new world that is unlike anything she could have imagined for herself,\u201d Farmer said. \u201cShe finds love, which is also kind of a weird thing for her. I think that the way that love works in this post-apocalypse is different than the way that we understand it. I think there\u2019s a lot of trauma in all of the characters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The play\u2019s themes of connection and community extend beyond the survivors\u2019 campfire. For first-year theatre arts major Ronnie Gardner, who plays the survivor Sam in acts one and two and the reporter Troy McClure in Act 3, the story highlights how people can find common ground in unlikely circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all of these people from completely different backgrounds coming together and trying to bond over just one little thing. Which is \u2018The Simpsons,\u2019 because that\u2019s pretty much\u00a0<\/p>\n

all they\u2019ve got right now,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cI find the theme of togetherness and trying to find a common thing people can bond over and then really elevating on that in Act 2.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Christian Dulce, Ronnie Gardner and Amanda Farmer (left to right) build up to their characters\u2019 big argument in a rehearsal of Act 2 of \u201cMr Burns: A Post-Electric Play\u201d at The Little Theatre in the Creative Arts building on Oct. 6, 2026. (Chad Church \/ Golden Gate Xpress) <\/a><\/p>\n

As the first and second acts wrap up, we are thrown into the wackiness of Act 3, which takes place over 70 years after the initial nuclear disaster that sent the world spiraling into chaos. At this point in the story, there is little left to serve as a lens into what the past was like.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The Simpsons\u2019 transformed from a silly way for survivors to remember their old lives into a serious and strange framework for storytelling. The rendition of \u2018Cape Feare\u2019 we see in Act 3 is a twisted and convoluted version of the episode that fans of \u2018The Simpsons\u2019 would know today.<\/p>\n

With many cast members doubling with roles in this production and THA 690\u2019s oncoming production, directors and crew have been working on an extreme time crunch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s certainly been an everyday process. Especially during rehearsal, you have to be fully in the moment, locked in, making sure everything works right,\u201d Zacks said. \u201cEvery day there always is a good one to two hours after, of emailing people and scheduling a crew day to go and build the sets and writing the next call sheets.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Being part of an SFSU Players Club production doesn\u2019t hold the same prerequisite requirements as THA 690. The club\u2019s accessibility opens opportunities for underclassmen, such as first-year theatre arts major Andrea Myer, to gain valuable experience on and off stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just been overall a great experience because I\u2019ve been able to build connections. I was hanging out with some of the actors yesterday, which I never even would have thought of back in high school,\u201d Myer said. \u201cBack in high school, there\u2019s kind of a divide between crew and actors. With Mr. Burns, it doesn\u2019t feel cliquey at all. It feels like we\u2019re all like one family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tickets for the Tuesday, Oct. 13 and Thursday, Oct. 15, showings can be purchased at the School of Theatre and Dance ticketing website<\/a> for $15 for the general public or $10 for senior citizens and students.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time since spring 2023, musical theatre hits the stage at San Francisco State University\u00a0 this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-494303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}