• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Glen Park Association

Up-to-the-minute news from Glen Park

  • Home
  • Glen Park Association
    • About the Glen Park Association
    • Join the GPA
    • GPA Board Contacts
    • GPA Meeting Minutes
    • Bylaws
    • Treasurer Report
    • Neighborhood boundaries
    • Donate
  • Glen Park News
  • Editor’s Picks
  • Greenway
    • Greenway Plan
    • Donate
  • Contact
    • Event Submission
    • Story Submission

Check out Bird & Beckett’s new blog

February 1, 2011 by Elizabeth Weise

BIRD & BECKETT BOOKS

RSS Archive
653 Chenery St in San Francisco (415)586-3733 birdbeckett.com
Home • Events • Shop • Support • Visit • Twitter • Facebook Question?
February 1, 2011

PUS Theatre Company sprang to life back in 1989, born from the ecstatic wine-soaked exclamations of the garrulous and Beckett-obsessed actors Charles Pike and Scott Baker, discovering one another’s love of the arch minimalist playwright at an orphan’s Thanksgiving in Chicago.  “From one day to the next,” says Vladimir to Estragon in Waiting for Godot (or could it be Estragon to Vladimir?), ”it’s never the same pus twice.” And so, their theatrical partnership was named…  Later, in the backroom of one of Chicago’s glorious bars — was it the Charleston? or Joe Danno’s Bucket o’ Suds? fact fades into legend in the misty recesses of time — Pike and Baker, gleefully noting that “pus” was among the actually-more-than-twelve-words not permitted to be uttered on radio by the FCC, wondered what they might do to circumvent that prohibition, and thus it became re-christened as an acronym suggested by barman John Keaney:  “Performers Under Stress,” he suggested, “because…you are.”  Or words to that effect… Their first production in that watershed year of 1989 was Beckett’s Rough for Radio I, scrappily promoted as Baker’s “B” rode about Wicker Park in a shopping  cart beating on Pike’s “A” with a broomstick to draw a crowd for their  evening performance, mounted as an offering in the inaugural season of the world-renowned fringe festival known as the Rhino, still running 22 years later.  That first PUS production furthermore baptized the very first “Around the Coyote”,  an annual arts and performance festival, now sadly and abruptly defunct, due to a lapse in that community’s support for the arts (emphasis added!). What started in Chicago in 1989 with the PUS production of Rough for Radio I continues in San Francisco at Bird & Beckett on Saturday, February 5th, at 7:30 pm, as we help them raise money for the 2011 season of PUS Theatre Company.  Our benefit will include a taste of Baker & Co.’s version of Rough for Radio II, along with a bit of Harold Pinter, a wine tasting and a silent auction… Visit http://pustheatre.com/PUS/PUS_Home_Page.html to buy advance tickets at $25 each, or pay $30 at the door.  Support the arts here now, in your town, in 2011!  You won’t ever regret having done so, we promise you. One last note:  PUS’ first full-length production was mounted in 1990 in a co-production with Chicago’s famous Prop Thtr at the venue called The Garage, an intimate space in the Steppenwolf’s parking garage on N. Halsted… and since 2007, beginning with its acclaimed Beckett grab-bag of pieces called Sam I Am, PUS has held forth in San Francisco from the venue called… The Garage… at 975 Howard Street.  Dig that!  Yet, still it’s never the same pus twice…

PUS Theatre Company sprang to life back in 1989, born from the ecstatic wine-soaked exclamations of the garrulous and Beckett-obsessed actors Charles Pike and Scott Baker, discovering one another’s love of the arch minimalist playwright at an orphan’s Thanksgiving in Chicago.  “From one day to the next,” says Vladimir to Estragon in Waiting for Godot (or could it be Estragon to Vladimir?), ”it’s never the same pus twice.”

And so, their theatrical partnership was named…

Later, in the backroom of one of Chicago’s glorious bars — was it the Charleston? or Joe Danno’s Bucket o’ Suds? fact fades into legend in the misty recesses of time — Pike and Baker, gleefully noting that “pus” was among the actually-more-than-twelve-words not permitted to be uttered on radio by the FCC, wondered what they might do to circumvent that prohibition, and thus it became re-christened as an acronym suggested by barman John Keaney:  “Performers Under Stress,” he suggested, “because…you are.”  Or words to that effect…

Their first production in that watershed year of 1989 was Beckett’s Rough for Radio I, scrappily promoted as Baker’s “B” rode about Wicker Park in a shopping cart beating on Pike’s “A” with a broomstick to draw a crowd for their evening performance, mounted as an offering in the inaugural season of the world-renowned fringe festival known as the Rhino, still running 22 years later.  That first PUS production furthermore baptized the very first “Around the Coyote”,  an annual arts and performance festival, now sadly and abruptly defunct, due to a lapse in that community’s support for the arts (emphasis added!).

http://birdandbeckett.tumblr.com/

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES

See the Latest Edition of the Glen Park News

Get Involved with the Glen Park Association


Join the Glen Park Association and help promote our community’s interests. Together, we can secure improvement funds, publicize neighborhood concerns and strive to speak as one voice on neighborhood and city issues.

Membership in the Glen Park Association is only $10 annually and can be purchased online.

Current Weather & Air Quality

Sign Up for Email Notifications

* indicates required

Glen Park featured on…

FacebookSF ChronInstagramTwitter

Blog Roll

Bernalwood
Coyote Yipps
Diamond Heights Boulevard Median project
Friends of Monterey Boulevard
Glen Park Neighborhoods History Project
Friends of Noe Valley Rec Center
Open SF History
Sunnyside Conservatory
Sunnyside History
Sunnyside Neighborhood Association
Tramps of San Francisco
Upper Noe Neighbors

Join the Glen Park Association on Facebook

Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons
Glen Park Association
3 weeks ago
Glen Park Association

👮‍♀️ Join Ingleside Captain Woon, Supervisor Mandelman and a respresentative from the DA's office at a:

Glen Park and Diamond Heights Public Safety Town Hall
February 17th
6:00PM

Register for Zoom information at: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvd-uuqTgoGdEdylqiz2CnKVMiIDXFfkD5.

Our watch via livestream on Supervisor Mandelman's Facebook page: www.facebook.com/rafael.mandelman.
... See MoreSee Less

👮‍♀️ Join Ingleside Captain Woon, Supervisor Mandelman and a respresentative from the DAs office at a:

Glen Park and Diamond Heights Public Safety Town Hall
February 17th
6:00PM

Register for Zoom information at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvd-uuqTgoGdEdylqiz2CnKVMiIDXFfkD5.

Our watch via livestream on Supervisor Mandelmans Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/rafael.mandelman.
View on Facebook
· Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
View Comments
  • Likes: 5
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

Glen Park Association
3 weeks ago
Glen Park Association

Our intrepid reporter Heather World has the story on a new Amos Goldbaum mural coming to Glen Park! Want to know more and find out how you can help? We have all the details at www.glenparkassociation.org/amos-goldbaum-mural-in-gp/ ... See MoreSee Less

Our intrepid reporter Heather World has the story on a new Amos Goldbaum mural coming to Glen Park! Want to know more and find out how you can help? We have all the details at https://www.glenparkassociation.org/amos-goldbaum-mural-in-gp/
View on Facebook
· Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
View Comments
  • Likes: 5
  • Shares: 1
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

Glen Park Association Blog Archives

Copyright © 2021 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in