The San Francisco Mime Troupe’s political pokes

The San Francisco Mime Troupe—which has been poking fun at politicians and other power brokers since the late 1950s—performs outdoors in Nevada City on Friday, in Davis on Saturday and in Sacramento on Sunday.

This year’s extravaganza is an original musical titled Schooled, and the satirical show is set at a high school, experiencing financial distress, leading to underpaid teachers working with old textbooks in aging school buildings that are overdue for modernization.

There’s a school board election underway, and the candidates include a tech industry tycoon who wants to privatize many aspects (and save money by replacing the flesh-and-blood faculty with “computer-generated teachers”); and a superannuated octogenarian history teacher who is an activist out of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration tradition.

The whole thing is set to jazzy music, performed live with an infectious beat by a three-piece band.

For those unfamiliar with the SF Mime Troupe, Michael Gene Sullivan—who is co-author of the script, and directed the show— stressed a point he always makes in interviews: “We don’t do silent mime. I can never say that too many times. We do political musical theater.”

In other words, don’t expect Marcel Marceau.