Gate Theatre, Sausalito
History
The Gate Theatre stood on what is now Bridgeway in Sausalito, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. It opened in May 1915 as the Princess Theater and was renamed the Gate in the 1930s. Its place in this chronicle is specific and early: in 1965 the San Francisco Mime Troupe made it a home, running 'A Minstrel Show, or Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel' — political satire performed by an integrated cast in blackface, benefiting SNCC and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party — across a series of runs from July into the autumn. The Mime Troupe's business manager at the time was Bill Graham, and the handbills and window cards for these shows are the earliest 'Bill Graham Presents' material there is: the posters that precede BG-1. In September 1965, a month before the troupe's obscenity trial began, its performances at the Gate were cancelled without explanation and the theatre's manager evicted it from its rented office space.
Its Place in the Scene
Where Bill Graham's poster history actually begins — the Mime Troupe's 1965 Sausalito home, and the source of the earliest 'Bill Graham Presents' handbills, before BG-1.