Performance is integral to the Creative Writing program, as it is to the overall curriculum at School of the Arts. The department schedules three major performance weekends a year. In recent years, two of these weekends have featured two nights of performance, with the first night's show on the SOTA campus and the second at outside venues such as Intersection for the Arts. Students have also appeared at the Marsh Theater, at Michelle Tea's "Radar Reading," and at awards ceremonies of the Bay Area Travel Writers, Youth Arts Festival, and Sacramento Poetry Center -- to name but a few. They also perform regularly in bookstores, cafés, and schools throughout San Francisco.

In the fall, performances often reflect work from the year-opening units of "Writing Through the Arts." Poetry, fiction, and essays find their way into the reading. Winter's show, generally two nights, has been called "Poetry Café" since the department's earliest days and features poetry (surprisingly enough). Spring performances -- generally one on-campus and one at an off-campus theater space -- are the culmination of the six-week Playwriting unit. Scenes students have written during this unit are submitted to a juried selection process. Those that emerge are given a staged reading by CW students, many of whom grab the opportunity to show off some serious acting chops.

In the past, both Fall and Winter performances have occasionally mingled a series of connecting skits with the actual readings. For example, Poet Poet Revolution Extreme, the Poetry Café in Winter 2005, included a short film and numerous skits all riffing on Shelley's claim that "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Skits in the Fall 2005 show, Factory Night, drew on the Andy Warhol legend. And in Fall 2006, Despot Roller Disco, was emceed by that wild and wacky guy Kim Jong Il. (No one ever accused C-dubs of playing it safe.) While skits have largely disappeared from recent performance readings, themes are still chosen, and you never know what may come up in future shows.

Attending Creative Writing shows is a good way for prospective students to see and hear the kind and caliber of work done in the department. Check our News and Calendar page for a schedule of performances in the current school year. Dates for major performance weekends are known at the beginning of the year and posted at that time; other appearances and readings, by individuals and small groups of  C-dubs, are added to the calendar as they come up. (Archived listings are also available on that page.) For photographs and videos of selected Creative Writing events stretching back to January 2005, check out our website Gallery page. At last count, 19 videoclips can be viewed there or at our YouTube SOTA Writers Channel.