What We Talk About When We Talk About Jerry
Presenting a new musical about the origins of Jerry Garcia
It begins, as many things in San Francisco do, with ghosts.
Not the gothic kind, not the kind that unsettle chihuahuas. But the other kind—the ones that walk Valencia Street in broad daylight, that strum chords over the Mission breeze, that keep time with the pulse of a city that once was and might be again, if only we can remember the tune. Jerry Garcia is one such ghost. And in Autumn 2025, we’re bringing him—his spirit, his songs, and his complicated, rapturous San Francisco—to life onstage at the Magic Theatre.
The project is Jerry Garcia in the Lower Mission, a new musical by Richard Montoya—writer, rebel, archivist of the Latinx absurd, and co-founder of Culture Clash. The Magic Theatre, once home to Sam Shepard’s howling frontier myths, is now staging its own new American mythos: one where the sound of Garcia’s guitar threads through a tender, tragicomic mosaic of border towns, BART trains, Catholic guilt, East Bay dive bars, and love.
Producing a musical in San Francisco in 2025 is not for the faint of heart. But then again, neither is living here. Which is why we’re launching a grassroots crowdfunding campaign for the first $10,000 of our $300,000 budget—before we turn to institutional investors, Silicon Valley benefactors, and the angelic suits of Wall Street. We’ve already raised $3,000. But what we need now is proof of faith. A show of hands. A ripple in the water.
Because we believe in this show. We believe in the music. We believe that between the songs and the stories, between the Lower Mission and the Upper Haight, there’s still a heartbeat worth listening to. A San Francisco worth singing about.
This is not a nostalgia project. This is not a jukebox musical. This is the beginning of something strange and beautiful and necessary. A theatrical communion. A call back to the soul of a city.
We’ll build it piece by piece, prayer by prayer. With every ticket sold, every song cleared, every dollar pledged.
Help us bring Jerry home.
So exciting! Congrats!