Jeff Burkhart has long been a fixture of Marin nightlife, both behind the bar and the byline.
As the “Barfly” columnist for the Marin Independent Journal and a five-time “Best Media Personality” winner in the Pacific Sun annual “Best of Marin” readers’ poll, Burkhart has chronicled the comedy, chaos and quiet wisdom of life behind the stick for nearly two decades.
Now, he’s bringing that world to the stage with Tale of a Barfly: Stories Poured from the Pages of Twenty Years Behind Bars, a full three-act production premiering 8pm, Thursday, Nov. 20, at the Showcase Theater, Marin Civic Center in San Rafael.
For those who’ve followed his column or his two books, this evolution feels inevitable. Burkhart’s writing has always had a cinematic quality, and for good reason: “Initially, I wanted to be a screenwriter, and not a journalist,” says Burkhart. “So I tend to write ‘in scene.’ Meaning that I write what I see, in person, and in my head. And that translates pretty well to a visual medium.”
It’s a natural transition for a storyteller whose observations already play like theater. In collaboration with photographer and filmmaker Lou Lesko, the project became a full narrative that merges memoir and imagination.
“Lou is a fantastic photographer and a great visual artist,” Burkhart says (Lesko shot the book covers for the writer’s two volumes of Twenty Years Behind Bars). “With his help, and expertise, we turned my stories and vision into a full narrative that not only incorporates a few of my stories but my overall experience as well.”
The production also includes Burkhart’s daughter, actress Callan Taylor, who stars alongside local performers Isabelle Barkey and Peter Malmquist. Taylor, a former Marin School of the Arts student, is known for her recurring role on Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and for appearing in the short film Testing 1,2,3, based on one of her father’s stories. For Burkhart, sharing a stage with her is both personal and profound.
“How many people get to combine their creative dream with their child’s creative dream?” he asks. “Callan is a true professional, and she really lights up the stage, so it’s enormously gratifying to be standing next to her when that happens. It is also interesting to hear one’s own dialogue coming out of the mouth of one’s own daughter. Often actors don’t like to take direction from writers, but in this case, it’s also her dad. And it all works.”
At its heart, Tale of a Barfly follows two women—a seasoned bartender and a writer learning the trade—whose parallel journeys explore what it means to find purpose in unexpected places. “The story of the two characters is really my story, in a sense, albeit combined and fictionalized for dramatic purposes,” Burkhart explains. “A bartender who wants to be a writer, only to discover that you can be both. Life comes right at you, no matter where you are. And sometimes, just standing right where you are is the best possible place in the world for you to be. That is the theme that we worked around.”
Few writers know better how bars double as stages for the human condition. “In a bar, especially a busy one, the breadth of human experience is on display almost every day,” he says. “All the world is a stage, and it has been my privilege and pleasure to be able to look through that very real proscenium arch, and write about it, for nearly 20 years.”
‘Tale of a Barfly’ plays Thursday, Nov. 20, 8pm, Showcase Theater, Marin Civic Center, San Rafael. Tickets $62–$165. More info at marincenter.org.
