“If San Francisco Collapses – Where are You?” is a project by Megan Robertson consisting of a series of verbatim documentary theatre performances, accompanied by live jazz music, highlighting artists’ resistance against gentrification and cultural displacement in the San Francisco Bay Area. This new work imagines theatre as more than a customer paying to travel to watch an imagined reality in a dark auditorium, instead using performance to bring real stories from the community into easily-accessible, neighborhood locations.

Thus far on the project, a group of San Franciscans, aged 20 to 76, have been interviewed about the identity of their city, the struggles and resistance of living in the Bay Area, and how technology changes culture and their personhood. Their words were recorded and verbatim became a script performed by local actors, accompanied by an original jazz score and performances from local jazz bands and bandleaders. Together, these stories and musical performances have formed a larger tapestry – consisting of figurative recollections, dreamlike memories, heartbreaks, collective joys, and calls to action.

The title for the piece comes from Maxime Le Forestier’s seminal 1972 song “San Francisco.” In the piece he sings, (translated into English) if San Francisco collapses, it will be the people, the eccentric, the madmen swimming in the fog that will continue to remain at the heart of the City. In today’s technological-takeover of the Bay Area, “If San Francisco Collapses” seeks to highlight these perspectives of these community members, these “madmen.”

An abridged version of this play was presented at the University of San Francisco’s Studio Theater on March 1, 2024 in San Francisco. A developmental reading was held on April 24, 2025 at Bird & Beckett Books & Records in San Francisco. As the project expands and more community members’ stories are added to this tapestry, Robertson plans to bring the piece to various locations throughout San Francisco, highlighting stories from community members in each neighborhood.

At the start of 2026, supported by the Fillmore Jazz Ambassadors, Robertson will host pop-up performances at Café International at the intersection of Haight and Fillmore Streets in San Francisco, focusing on community perspectives from the Fillmore and Lower Haight Districts, partnering with Café International’s resident jazz band. For inquires/more information on the development of this project: email megrrobertson@gmail.com and follow @IFSFCOLLAPSES on Instagram.

Photos from USF by Chessire Issacs. Photos from Bird & Beckett by Klyde Java.