On April 17 and 18, 2026, Stephen Schwartz, the Tony and Oscar-winning composer of Godspell, Pippin and Wicked, took the stage at The Chan National Queer Arts Center for The Songs + Stories of Stephen Schwartz, joined by members of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.
A long friendship
Schwartz’s bond with the chorus runs deep. He wrote “Testimony” for SFGMC, a song built from the words of the It Gets Better Project, and he told the Bay Area Reporter’s Jim Provenzano that he takes real pride in it. The piece was part of the program.
Schwartz also described the evenings as a thank-you and a farewell for Christopher Verdugo, who was completing a decade as SFGMC’s CEO.
Special guests
According to the Bay Area Reporter, the program featured Bay Area native Taylor Iman Jones, whose Broadway credits include Six and Head Over Heels, and Michael McCorry Rose, Schwartz’s partner and a former Fiyero in Wicked. BroadwayWorld, announcing Season 48: SHINE, listed the concerts as a highlight of the chorus’s Chan series.
Photos: Marco Solorio, OneRiver Media
Sources
This post summarizes reporting by the Bay Area Reporter and BroadwayWorld. Details attributed to those outlets are their reporting; see the sources below.
- Bay Area Reporter, “Stephen Schwartz – Tony & Oscar-winning composer performs at the Chan Center with SF Gay Men’s Chorus members & special guests” by Jim Provenzano, April 2026. Read the original story
- BroadwayWorld, “San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus Reveals Season 48 Lineup Feat. Stephen Schwartz” by Josh Sharpe, February 3, 2026. Read the original story
Also covered: San Francisco Chronicle, “Stephen Schwartz reveals powerful moment that shaped his bond with S.F. Gay Men’s Chorus” (read), and San Francisco Classical Voice, “It is a political act and a cultural act”: Stephen Schwartz Praises SF Gay Men’s Chorus (read).
