BEAVER BAUER: FROM STREET TO STAGE Opens at San Francisco Public Library

FROM STREET TO STAGE, a Fifty-Year Retrospective by iconic artist and theatrical Costume Designer Beaver Bauer, opens Thurs. Nov. 5, 2026 at 5:00 pm and runs through Sun. April 11, 2027 at the San Francisco Public Library Main Branch, 100 Larkin St., San Francisco, CA 94102. The show will be installed in the Jewett Gallery and Koret Lobby (Lower Level) and is FREE and open to the public during regular library hours.

'Working with Beaver Bauer is pure magic. She brings inventive, artistic, and delightful quirkiness to every piece she creates.' - Brian Boitano – USA Olympic Ice-Skating Champion

This retrospective exhibition surveys the career of Debra 'Beaver' Bauer - the beloved and irreverent artist and Costume Designer that spans more than fifty years of creative work. The exhibition includes original renderings, performance photography, video clips and elements from costumes drawn from her expansive work. Bauer developed her reputation first as a member of the experimental Angels of Light Free Theater [working alongside celebrated performers such as: Hibiscus, Rodney Price and Martin Wong], which flourished for ten years before its cast was impacted by AIDS. Their visual extravagance became her signature style. Bauer then transitioned to work in costume design, becoming one of the Bay Area's most respected and celebrated designers. She designed for major theaters including American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) and Berkeley Rep, as well as experimental companies: First Voice, and Theater of Yugen. She also worked with the circus ensemble Teatro ZinZanni, all while maintaining an approach based in drawing and a lifelong inspiration from the Angels of Light.

The exhibition includes original renderings, performance photography, film and video clips, elements from costumes drawn from her expansive work and an original mural honoring the Angels of Light. Also included are drawings from her collection entitled: THE BUS QUEEN'S GAZETTE - MUNI PORTRAITS SERIES. Everyone is encouraged to come in inappropriate dress for the opening. Welcome to the World of Beaver Bauer.

The exhibition Beaver Bauer: FROM STREET TO STAGE at San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) Main Library (100 Larkin St., San Francisco) will be accompanied by several public programs and panels including:

Thurs. Nov. 5, 2026 – 5:00 pm – Programing TBA.

Exhibition co-curated by Mark Johnson, Trisha Lagaso Goldberg and Theo B. Lau, in collaboration with the SFPL Exhibition Team of Allison Wyckoff, Megan Merritt, Christine Darnell and Ben Vilmain. Special thanks to the individuals behind the scenes who contributed to realizing the project by lending imagery, costumes and their labor.

Artistic Statement

'The slope of a forehead, the way someone moves, the texture of a concrete wall, and the words of street philosophers are a symphony of inspiration. These simple beauties of life are my wellspring. My artistic voice has been centered on theatrical costume design as an active expression of these observations. Theater is an ancient magic of transformation. The transfer of sketch into fabric in the temple of the fitting room, activated on a stage, that moves an audience to laugh, sigh, cry, and maybe experience greater empathy for something they don't understand. My style is awash with curiosity, humor, wonder, irony, a smidge of poetry and a pinch of spiritual vulgarity. How excited I am at 76 years to find new directions, now working as an archivist, curator, and installation artist – still gathering and telling tales, while returning to my first love of drawing and making up new worlds.' - Beaver Bauer

The Bus Queen's Gazette - Muni Portraits Series

A suite of intimate portrait drawings of strangers created during her daily ride on the #22-Fillmore MUNI bus.

'I dubbed myself 'The Bus Queen' as I have ridden MUNI since 1970. Drawing is my original love that has sustained my soul and my constant urge to create. MUNI offers a rich soup of characters to dazzle, puzzle and observe. I began drawing them in 2016 to hold them and try to find a way inside their psyches. It became a Journal (Gazette) on its own…done quickly with BIC pen and sketch pads. I draw quickly and I can't erase…and have tried to capture inner grace, an unusual slope of cheek, and features that announce themselves.

Do I choose them? I think they choose me.'

Beaver Bauer Bio

Beaver Bauer is a doyenne of San Francisco contemporary theater, renowned as a preeminent Costume Designer for a panoply of major theatre companies and seminal alternative ensembles, as well as a one of the founding members of the Angels of Light Free Theater (1970-1984). The Angels were an outrageous socio-political and radical troupe associated with the communes of the San Francisco counterculture, that created extravagantly original musical productions that took the San Francisco Bay Area by storm in the 1970's. The Angels did at least 48 Shows from Full Scale Productions to Cabarets to Street Performance and Fairs… and any Old Folks home who wanted us. They lived in a Commune of 30 and their consuming goal was to make Free Theater, and Beaver eventually became Co-Director. https://www.diggers.org/angels_of_light.htm

As a Costume Designer she has seen her work grace the stages of The Bay Area, Washington DC and NYC. She designed her first Circus in Tokyo featuring members of The Moscow Circus. For eight seasons she designed costumes for The Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular on NBC TV. Beaver was once again seduced by the circus when in 2000 she became the Resident Designer at Teatro ZinZanni in San Francisco, Seattle & Chicago, 2002 - 2024, and Palazzo in Berlin. Some of the many Theatre companies Bauer designed for include: Magic Theatre, Ft. Mason in SF. 1983-2023; Berkeley Repertory Theater, 1985-2013; The Eureka Theatre, 1985-1987; American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.), 2005-2023; San Jose Repertory Theater, 1987-2003; SF Shakespeare Festival, 1987-1984; Jeff Kutash Productions in Las Vegas Casinos, 1988-2018; American Musical Theater, 1996-1997; Margaret Jenkins Dance Theater, 1996-2008; CA Shakespeare Festival, 1999-2013; Marc Huestis and The Thrillpeddlers, 2013; First Voice, 2013; Third Cloud From The Left, 2016-2017; Theater Yugen, 1991.

Bauer is beloved for her extravagant and sculptural costuming; her inspiration often drawn from nature and influenced by the queer/trans cohorts with whom she collaborated. The exhibition presents new installations as well as a retrospective of more than 50 years of her creative work. It includes full costumes from multiple productions, selected props Bauer designed, and video documentation of these works activated in performance. The exhibition also features original renderings and documentary photographs that demonstrate the development of costumes from initial concept, through the fire of the fitting room, and onto the stage. Other highlights include THE BUS QUEEN'S GAZETTE - MUNI PORTRAITS SERIES - a suite of intimate portrait drawings of strangers created during her daily ride on the #22-Fillmore MUNI bus, along with new immersive installations. One installation will fill the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) Main Library's Jewett and Koret Lobby area (100 Larkin St., San Francisco) with a mythological forest commemorating colleagues from the theater community lost to HIV/AIDS, entitled 'An Arboretum of Dreams.'

Event Details

Beaver Bauer: FROM STREET TO STAGE

Opening Thurs. Nov. 5, 2026 (5:00 pm) – Sun. April 11, 2027 - FREE

San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) Main Library, Jewett Gallery and Koret Lobby (Lower Level), 100 Larkin St., San Francisco, CA 94102

SFPL Main Library and restrooms are ADA-accessible.

SFPL Main Branch Hours: Tues. - Thurs.: 9:00 am – 8:00 pm; Fri. – Sun.: NOON – 6:00 pm

Transit: Near Civic Center BART/Muni station. Bus Lines 5, 6, 7, 9, 21, 47, 49 stop within 4 blocks of the library.

SFPL Phone: 415-557-4400

Web site: https://beaverbauer.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beaverbauer/