NOISES OFF to Open The San Francisco Playhouse Season

San Francisco Playhouse is launching its 23rd season with Michael Frayn's rollicking backstage comedy Noises Off. This comedic classic follows a string of recent hit Playhouse productions of fast-paced farces including The Play That Goes Wrong, Clue, and The 39 Steps. Full of slapstick silliness and choreographed chaos, this uproarious comedy follows a dysfunctional British theatre troupe struggling to stage the door-slamming farce Nothing On. The drama rages both onstage and behind the scenes as missed cues, misplaced props, and romantic entanglements cause their production to descend into madcap mayhem.

Noises Off premiered in the West End in 1982, winning the Olivier Award for Best Play. It then opened on Broadway in 1983, where it was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. It has since been revived twice on Broadway and adapted into a film featuring a starry roster that included Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, and Christopher Reeve. The New York Post deemed it “the funniest farce ever written” while The New York Times lauded it as “a festival of delirium. Spectacularly funny. The most dexterously realized comedy ever about putting on a comedy.”

“Noises Off is not just a great farce, but a great play,” said artistic director Bill English. “Its metatheatrical structure gives it an edge on all other farces, and it brings out the human hidden between the laughs.”

2026 Theater Fans' Choice Awards - Live Stats

Best Sound Design - Top 3

1. Adam Fisher - The Lost Boys

29.6% of votes

2. John Shivers - Chess

15.8% of votes

3. Tony Gayle - Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

8.9% of votes

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