Magic Theatre, San Francisco

When Academy Award–nominated actor and writer Sam Shepard premiered La Turista at the Magic in 1971, he was far from the last heavy hitter to work with the theater. Throughout his tenure as Playwright In Residence, he's collaborated with everyone from Joseph Chaikan to Nick Nolte and Sean Penn, and that's to say nothing of the other dynamic writers who have seen their work on the Magic's stage—David Mamet, John O'Keefe, and Penelope Skinner, to name a few. Such household names are no doubt drawn to the Magic by its mission to produce "explosive, entertaining, and ideologically robust plays that ask substantive questions about, and reflect the rich diversity of, the world in which we live." That's a far cry from what most of the films actors and writers get to work on in Hollywood.