Beach Blanket Babylon is Closing Forever

Photo from Beach Blanket Babylon

Beach Blanket Babylon, the longest running musical review in the world, is closing down on Tuesday, December 31st, 2019 (New Year’s Eve).

BBB has spent the past 45 years taking clever, satirical, ribald stabs at current events while delighting locals and tourists alike. Upon its closing, the show will have played a record-breaking 17,216 performances and entertained 6.5 million people from around the world.

In an era when so many legendary San Francisco institutions have been closing, this is a particularly brutal one. BBB is one of those wonderful shows that multiple generations of families would watch together. Often times the elder members would have seen many of its permutations. Part of the charm of Beach Blanket Babylon is that they structured their shows around current events, so it would be different each time you saw it.

To get an idea of what went into the shows, check out this behind the scenes exposé that Alex Mak did for this site a few years back.

Earlier today the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the show wasn’t closing for financial reasons but because producer Jo Schuman Silver “felt that it was time and didn’t feel comfortable handing it off to a successor.”

To learn more about the show’s storied history and to buy tickets before the final performance you can go to their website right here.

Beach Blanket Babylon, you will be sorely missed.