The local theatergoing community has been awaiting the grand reopening of The Curran theater since late last year, when it was announced that local producer and SHN co-founder Carole Shorentstein Hays was renovating and reopening the historic venue as a home for innovative and envelope-pushing work. With the renovation complete and the theater's inaugural production, Fun Home, set to open January 25, the team is now ready for a big red-carpet grand reopening event, and it will, appropriately, honor a production from early in Shorenstein Hays's producing career that premiered at the Curran nearly 30 years ago.

That would be Fences, the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play by August Wilson, which got its first film adaptation this year, starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, and directed by Washington.

Fences, the film, will have its SF premiere at The Curran next Thursday, December 15, at a red carpet event hosted by Willie Brown and featuring a conversation with the cast including Washington, Jovan Adepo, Mykelti Williamson, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Saniyya Sidney. And today at 3 p.m., 100 members of the public can vie for tickets to the big premiere via lottery. Details on that are here, and will require some quick fingers.

Shorenstein Hays produced the first production of Fences, which opened at The Curran on February 6, 1987, and soon moved to Broadway, where it took home the Tony for Best Play, followed by the Pulitzer. A 2010 revival of the play, co-produced by Shorenstein Hays and Scott Rudin and starring Washington and Davis, also took home the Tony for Best Revival of a Play, and Washington and Davis each won Tonys for their performances as well.

Below, the trailer for Fences.