Emperor Norton to Present Talkback Following DOODLER at The Marsh San Francisco

Legendary San Francisco personality, tour guide, and historian Emperor Norton will speak to the audience after the performance of John Fisher’s DOODLER, a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle “Go See!” production, at 8pm, Saturday, June 21 at The Marsh San Francisco—a unique opportunity to dive deep into San Francisco’s rich and rainbow history.

Emperor Norton, affectionately called “royalty,” and hailed by The Mercury News as “highly entertaining,” guides countless out-of-towners and locals through the iconic hills and streets that define the City by the Bay. Joined by Fisher, whose play DOODLER takes audiences on a tour of local landmarks while trying to solve a chain of murders in the gay community, these two stalwart cultural experts will steward the conversation through more of San Francisco’s true-crime history, focusing in on lore and lessons from the past. Truth is often stranger than fiction: audiences can expect delights and surprises as they are whisked away through this dynamic audience talkback.

DOODLER runs now through July 6, 2025, with performances 8:00pm Saturdays and 3:00pm Sundays at The Marsh San Francisco.

DOODLER follows a young gay man on a relentless investigation to solve the mystery of the “Doodler,” a serial killer who targeted the queer community and left behind drawn portraits of each of his victims. The amateur sleuth tours the city in search of clues—from the Castro to Haight-Ashbury, from Ocean Beach to North Beach. Fisher takes the one-man show format to the extreme, operating all staging and technical elements live from the stage while performing every role in this chilling, dead-serious, and campy crusade. To this day, the Doodler case remains unsolved. 

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