The SF Mime Troupe performs its free outdoor satire Wreckage — about AI hype, housing costs, and broken institutions — at Live Oak Park in Berkeley on Saturday and Sunday, July 18–19, 2:00 p.m. both days.

The San Francisco Mime Troupe performs Wreckage: A Musical Tragicomedy at Live Oak Park, Shattuck Ave at Berryman St, Berkeley, this Saturday, July 18, and Sunday, July 19 — showtime 2:00 p.m. both days, with live music at 1:30 p.m. Admission is free; the Troupe asks for donations. Runtime is about 80 minutes, no intermission. The venue is walking distance from BART, per the Troupe's own schedule.

The show is the Troupe's new 2026 commission, written by company stalwart Michael Gene Sullivan and directed by Lisa Hori-Garcia, with music by Daniel Savio. Three storylines collide: Mari, a flower seller defending her street corner in an unaffordable city; Felicity, an evangelical torn between anticipating the Rapture and discrepancies in her church's accounting; and Bobbie, a software developer who realizes his AI agent doesn't work and must choose between telling his bosses at "Anthropomorphic" the dangerous truth or shipping a dud that'll boost the stock anyway. That's the Troupe's own plot description, not an embellishment.

The Mime Troupe has been doing this since 1959 — free park shows, new script every summer, rooted in Commedia dell'Arte structure and loud enough to carry across a lawn. Wreckage is their read on this specific moment: AI hype, Bay Area housing pressure, and the gap between knowing something's broken and fixing it. "Join us for a new musical packed with live music, political satire, and the search for hope amid the wreckage," the Troupe's website reads.

The practical move: Arrive by 1:15 p.m. to claim a sightline on the grass — the pre-show band starts at 1:30 and the crowd fills in fast. Bring a blanket. Both afternoons wrap by roughly 3:30 p.m.