Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Program - American Conservatory Theater
Document related concepts
History of theatre wikipedia , lookup
Buffalo Players (theatre company) wikipedia , lookup
Theatre of the Oppressed wikipedia , lookup
Improvisational theatre wikipedia , lookup
Theatre of France wikipedia , lookup
Medieval theatre wikipedia , lookup
English Renaissance theatre wikipedia , lookup
Augsburger Puppenkiste wikipedia , lookup
Colorado Shakespeare Festival wikipedia , lookup
Transcript
SAN FRANCISCO’S PREMIER NONPROFIT THEATER COMPANY JOHN FEB–APR 2017 SEASON 50, ISSUE 5 Stay Exquisite Experience extraordinary hospitality in the most distinctive of urban settings. With refined accommodations, unique event spaces and locally inspired dining, The St. Regis San Francisco embodies timeless spirit with modern day sophistication. ©2016 Marriott International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Preferred Guest, SPG, St. Regis and their logos are the trademarks of Marriott International, Inc., or its affiliates. The St. Regis San Francisco 125 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 t: 1.415.284.4000 stregis.com/sanfrancisco Stay exquisite at more than 40 St. Regis hotels and resorts worldwide. @stregishotels My wealth. My priorities. My partner. You’ve spent your life accumulating wealth. And, no doubt, that wealth now takes many forms, sits in many places, and is managed by many advisors. Unfortunately, that kind of fragmentation creates gaps that can hold your wealth back from its full potential. The Private Bank can help. The Private Bank uses a proprietary approach called the LIFE Wealth Cycle to find those gaps—and help you achieve what is important to you. SM To learn more, contact: Ralph Dickman Vice President, Private Wealth Advisor 408-279-7734 [email protected] or visit unionbank.com/theprivatebank Wills, trusts, foundations, and wealth planning strategies have legal, tax, accounting, and other implications. Clients should consult a legal or tax advisor. ©2016 MUFG Union Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Member FDIC. Union Bank is a registered trademark and brand name of MUFG Union Bank, N.A. PRESENTS THEATER TOURS FOR 2017 February 2017 Volume 15, No. 5 IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THEATER AT THE PACIFIC PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL COSTA MESA’S PACIFIC PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL Paul Heppner Publisher Susan Peterson Design & Production Director APRIL 21–24 Ana Alvira, Robin Kessler, Shaun Swick, Stevie VanBronkhorst Production Artists and Graphic Design EXPERIENCE THE EXCITEMENT OF HAMILTON ON BROADWAY Mike Hathaway Sales Director THE BRIGHT LIGHTS OF BROADWAY IN NEW YORK CITY JULY 11–17 Marilyn Kallins, Terri Reed, Rob Scott San Francisco/Bay Area Account Executives Brieanna Bright, Joey Chapman, Ann Manning Seattle Area Account Executives Jonathan Shipley Ad Services Coordinator Carol Yip Sales Coordinator EXPLORE ASHLAND AND THE OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL THE CHARMING OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL JULY 19–24 RELISH THE LEGACY OF EUROPEAN DRAMA IN DUBLIN AND LONDON NEW COMBO TOUR THE BEST OF BRITISH AND IRISH THEATER Paul Heppner President Mike Hathaway Vice President Genay Genereux Accounting & Office Manager Sara Keats Marketing Manager Ryan Devlin Business Development Manager OCTOBER 3–12 Corporate Office 425 North 85th Street Seattle, WA 98103 ALL THEATER TOURS ARE LED BY A.C.T. ARTISTIC STAFF AND INCLUDE: • • • • • • • • Tickets to world-class productions Luxury accommodations Discussions with guest artists led by A.C.T. staff Welcome and farewell dinners Lunches and cocktail hours Complimentary breakfast each morning in our hotel Sightseeing excursions and/or walking tours Travel companions who love theater For more information visit act-sf.org/theatertours or contact Helen Rigby at 415.439.2469 or [email protected] 4 p 206.443.0445 f 206.443.1246 [email protected] 800.308.2898 x105 www.encoremediagroup.com Encore Arts Programs is published monthly by Encore Media Group to serve musical and theatrical events in the Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay Areas. All rights reserved. ©2017 Encore Media Group. Reproduction without written permission is prohibited. ACT-SF.ORG ' SAN FRANCISCO S THEATER COMPANY American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco’s Tony Award– A.C.T.’s 50-year-old Conservatory, led by Melissa Smith, is at winning nonprofit theater, nurtures the art of live theater the center of our work. Our three-year, fully accredited Master through dynamic productions, intensive actor training, of Fine Arts Program is at the forefront of America’s actor and ongoing engagement with our community. Under the training programs. Meanwhile, our intensive Summer Training leadership of Artistic Director Carey Perloff, we embrace Congress attracts students from around the world, and the San our responsibility to conserve, renew, and reinvent our rich Francisco Semester offers a unique study-abroad opportunity theatrical traditions and literatures, while exploring new for undergraduates. Other programs include the world-famous artistic forms and new communities. Founded by William Ball, Young Conservatory for students ages 8 to 19, led by 28-year a pioneer of the regional theater movement, A.C.T. opened its veteran Craig Slaight; Studio A.C.T., our expansive course of first San Francisco season in 1967. We have since performed theater study for adults; and the Professional Development more than 350 productions to a combined audience of more Training Program, which offers actor training for companies than seven million people. Every year we reach more than seeking to elevate their employees’ business performance skills. 250,000 people through our productions and programs. Our alumni often grace our mainstage and perform around the Bay Area, as well as on stages and screens across the country. Rising from the wreckage of the earthquake and fire of 1906 and hailed as the “perfect playhouse,” the beautiful, historic A.C.T. also brings the benefits of theater-based arts education Geary Theater has been our home since the beginning. When to more than 12,000 Bay Area students and educators each the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake ripped the roof apart, San year. Central to our ACTsmart education programs, run by Franciscans rallied together to raise a record-breaking $30 Director of Education & Community Programs Elizabeth million to rebuild the theater. The Geary reopened in 1996 with Brodersen, is the longstanding Student Matinee (SMAT) a production of The Tempest directed by Perloff, who took over program, which has brought hundreds of thousands of young in 1992 after the retirement of A.C.T.’s second artistic director, people to A.C.T. performances since 1968. We also provide gentleman artist Ed Hastings. touring Will on Wheels Shakespeare productions, teachingartist residencies, in-school workshops, and study materials to Perloff’s 24-season tenure has been marked by groundbreaking Bay Area schools and community-based organizations. productions of classical works and new translations creatively colliding with exceptional contemporary theater; cross- With our increased presence in the Central Market neighborhood disciplinary performances and international collaborations; marked by the renovation of The Strand Theater and the and theater made by, for, and about the Bay Area. Her fierce opening of The Costume Shop Theater, A.C.T. plays a leadership commitment to audience engagement ushered in a new era role in securing the future of theater for San Francisco and of InterACT events and dramaturgical publications, inviting the nation. everyone to explore what goes on behind the scenes. American Conservatory Theater Board of Trustees Nancy Livingston CHAIR Kirke M. Hasson PRESIDENT Celeste Ford VICE CHAIR Priscilla Geeslin VICE CHAIR David Riemer VICE CHAIR Steven L. Swig VICE CHAIR Linda Jo Fitz TREASURER Daniel E. Cohn SECRETARY Alan L. Stein CHAIR EMERITUS Ray Apple Lesley Ann Clement Richard T. Davis-Lowell Jerome L. Dodson Michael G. Dovey Olympia Dukakis Sarah M. Earley Frannie Fleishhacker Ken Fulk Dianne Hoge Jo S. Hurley Jeri Lynn Johnson Alan Jones James H. Levy Heather Stallings Little Janet V. Lustgarten Jeffrey S. Minick Michael P. Nguyen Martim Oliveira Peter Pastreich Carey Perloff Robina Riccitiello Dan Rosenbaum Sally Rosenblatt Abby Sadin Schnair Jeff Spears Robert Tandler Patrick S. Thompson Joaquin Torres Jeff Ubben Adriana Lopez Vermut Nola Yee Kay Yun EMERITUS ADVISORY BOARD Barbara Bass Bakar Rena Bransten Jack Cortis Joan Danforth (As of October 2016) Dagmar Dolby William Draper III John Goldman Kaatri Grigg James Haire Kent Harvey Sue Yung Li Christine Mattison Joan McGrath Deedee McMurtry Mary S. Metz Toni Rembe Rusty Rueff Joan Sadler Cherie Sorokin Alan L. Stein Barry Lawson Williams Carlie Wilmans The Board of Directors of the M.F.A. Program Abby Sadin Schnair CHAIR Sara Barnes Carlotta Dathe Frannie Fleishhacker Arnie Glassberg Christopher Hollenbeck Luba Kipnis Linda Kurtz Jennifer Lindsay Toni Miller Toni Rembe Sally Rosenblatt Anne Shonk Melissa Smith Alan L. Stein Patrick S. Thompson American Conservatory Theater was founded in 1965 by William Ball. Edward Hastings, Artistic Director 1986–92 415.749. 2228 5 WELLESLEY ROBERTSON III IN NEEDLES AND OPIUM. PHOTO COURTESY EX MACHINA. “SUPER-VISIONARY” —THE NEW YORK TIMES “A MASTERPIECE” —TORONTO STAR NEE IN THIS INNOVATIVE PRODUCTION FROM FRENCH Canadian director Robert Lepage, three worlds collide inside a vast cube suspended over the Geary stage. Jazz legend Miles Davis travels to Europe in 1949 to discover the pleasures of Paris, unlock his creativity, and find his heroine in Juliette Gréco. At the same time, French filmmaker Jean Cocteau returns from his own opium-fueled journey to New York. Forty years later, a Québécois actor wanders the streets of Paris, seeking solace from a lost love in the words of Cocteau and the cool jazz of Davis. Individually, the stories are thrilling and heartbreaking, but what elevates this production is Lepage’s extraordinary storytelling. One of Canada’s most revered film and stage directors, Lepage has directed everything from ballet and opera to puppetry and circus shows. He has helmed productions of Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera, Kà and Totem for Cirque du Soleil, and a Kabuki-inspired Stravinsky at the Canadian Opera Company. AND DLES OPIUM WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ROBERT LEPAGE PRODUCED BY EX MACHINA He has also directed five feature films and is the artistic director of his own multidisciplinary production company, Ex Machina, the producer of this piece. Developing an aesthetic all his own, Lepage combines words, movement, music, installation art, and contemporary circus techniques to create a unique theatrical experience. In Needles and Opium, Lepage uses video projection, acrobatics, and jazz to take us on a breathtaking dive through Paris’s nightclubs and bistros to examine the enigmas of creativity, exile, and addiction. Can art as intoxicating as Davis’s trumpet-playing and Cocteau’s films be created without the intensity of addiction, in the unfamiliar heart of a foreign city? The result is an experience not to be missed. MAR 30–APR 23 A.C.T.’S GEARY THEATER 415 GEARY STREET act-sf.org/needles 415.749.2228 Classes for adults of all levels—from acting, voice, and improv to dialect and movement workshops Spring Session April 4–May 28 Summer Session June 5–August 6 A theater-training program for young actors between the ages of 8 and 19 Spring Session March 21–May 13 Summer Session June 12–July 7 Intensive actor training for ages 19+ 5-Week Intensive June 12–July 14 2-Week Shakespeare Intensive July 17–28 Visit act-sf.org/conservatory to learn more and sign up! 8 ACT-SF.ORG PHOTO CREDITS LEFT TO RIGHT: RYAN MONTGOMERY, KEVIN BERNE, RYAN MONTGOMERY SPEND A SUMMER AT A.C.T.! PHOTO BY SHANNON STOCKWELL DON’T JUST SIT THERE . . . At A.C.T.’s free InterACT events, you can mingle with cast members, join interactive workshops with theater artists, and meet fellow theatergoers at hosted celebrations in our lounges. Join us for our upcoming production of Needles and Opium and InterACT with us! NEEDLES AND OPIUM AT THE GEARY THEATER BIKE TO THE THEATER NIGHT MAR 30, 7 PM Ride your bike to A.C.T. and take advantage of secure bike parking and low-priced tickets at our preshow mixer, presented in partnership with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. Actors Stacey Yen (Jenny) and Joe Paulik (Elias) WHAT’S INSIDE ABOUT THE PLAY INSIDE A.C.T. 11 LETTER FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 23 LOVE AND HAIGHT By Carey Perloff 14 MADNESS AND INTIMACY An Interview with Playwright Annie Baker By Michael Paller 16 A HIDDEN WELL An Interview with Director Ken Rus Schmoll By Elspeth Sweatman Looking ahead to A Night with Janis Joplin By Simon Hodgson 24 FIFTY YEARS OF DISCOVERY A History of New Work at A.C.T. By Shannon Stockwell 26 EPIC SIMPLICITY A Sneak Peek at Peter Brook’s Battlefield By Elspeth Sweatman 28 CITIZEN DRAMATURGS EDITOR SIMON HODGSON How A.C.T.’s New Strands Festival Is Changing San Francisco By Simon Hodgson ASSOCIATE EDITOR SHANNON STOCKWELL CONTRIBUTORS MICHAEL PALLER CAREY PERLOFF ELSPETH SWEATMAN CONNECT! AUDIENCE EXCHANGE* APR 9 & 19, 2 PM; APR 11, 7 PM Join us for an exciting Q&A with the cast following the show. OUT WITH A.C.T.* APR 12, 8 PM Mix and mingle at this hosted postshow LGBT party. THEATER ON THE COUCH* APR 14, 8 PM Take part in a lively conversation in our lower-level lounge with Dr. Mason Turner, chief of psychiatry at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center. SYMPOSIUM APR 15, 2 PM An expert on the themes of the play joins a member of the Needles and Opium artistic team for a fascinating postshow conversation. WENTE VINEYARDS WINE SERIES APR 18, 7 PM Meet fellow theatergoers at this hosted wine-tasting event. To learn more and order tickets for InterACT events, visit act-sf.org/interact. *Events take place immediately following the performance VOLUNTEER! LISTEN! A.C.T. volunteers provide an invaluable service with their time, enthusiasm, and love of theater. Opportunities include helping out in our performing-arts library and ushering in our theaters. Check out A.C.T.’s new podcast, Theaterology, and listen to InterACT events online! FOR MORE INFORMATION: ACT-SF.ORG/VOLUNTEER 415.749. 2228 PROLOGUE APR 4, 5:30 PM Go deeper with a fascinating preshow discussion with a member of the Needles and Opium artistic team. VISIT: ACT-SF.ORG/PODCAST 9 A.C.T.’S 50TH SEASON GALA THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 5PM Join A.C.T.’s celebrated alumni and artists from the past 50 years with a black-tie block party along Market Street. THE EVENING WILL FEATURE • Champagne promenade and cocktail reception • Dinner in our tented supper club • Entertainment featuring excerpts from 50 years of A.C.T. productions HONORARY COMMITTEE* SPECIAL GUESTS AND PERFORMERS* Beth Behrs Annette Bening Judy Kaye Colman Domingo Mary Birdsong Patrick Lane Douglas Sills Joy Carlin Julia Mattison Denzel Washington Nancy Carlin Matt McGrath Betsy Wolfe Rozzi Crane Jacob Ming-Trent Ryan Williams French Chelsea Peretti Nick Gabriel Jomar Tagatac Devon Graye Jacqueline Toboni Lateefah Holder Alysha Umphress Casey Lee Hurt Jud Williford Adam Jacobs BD Wong FOR TICKETS, VISIT act-sf.org/gala *as of February 7 FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Dear Friends, Welcome to the magical, mysterious world of Annie Baker. Geary-wide open-house celebration of A.C.T.’s birthday, with live Many of you may already be Baker aficionados (there have been events happening all over the building. The day will culminate excellent productions of her work at San Francisco Playhouse, in a free reading on the Geary stage of Dylan Thomas’s Under Marin Theatre Company, and Aurora Theatre Company), while Milk Wood, starring many beloved alumni and former company for others, John will be an introduction to the highly original members. We hope you will all join us for that! voice of a remarkable young playwright. John invites us into the Gettysburg bed-and-breakfast of a loquacious woman named As we put the finishing touches on Michael Paller’s 50th- Mertis. Nothing is what it seems in this hilarious and unsettling anniversary book, A Five-Act Play: 50 Years of A.C.T., I am meditation on loneliness, time, and the search for connection in constantly reminded of the founding vision for A.C.T. and an increasingly enigmatic universe. the tenacity of so many artists, administrators, and audience members that has kept it alive in spite of all obstacles. While I find it particularly interesting that we are doing this play in honoring the original vision of a muscular repertory company the home city of Airbnb, a company that has made ubiquitous that is also a distinguished educational institution, A.C.T. has the truly strange practice of sleeping in someone else’s home, evolved and grown in significant ways, particularly with regard surrounded by someone else’s personal possessions and life to the depth of our community engagement and the breadth stories. John is a ghost story about trying to make sense of of our commitment to new work. In this program, you’ll find a one’s place in the world, while surrounded by wind chimes, wonderful piece on our New Strands Festival and our work on lifelike dolls, and an endless array of tchotchkes. The play new plays over the past 50 years. These commitments give me is filled with Baker’s uniquely crafted language and wit and great hope about the next 50! feels particularly suited for the intimacy of The Strand. We’re delighted to welcome such a distinguished group of artists to Finally, as we celebrate our past and look to the future, we hope A.C.T. to collaborate on this West Coast premiere of Baker’s you will continue to share your own stories with us—we love latest play. what we’ve received so far! Visit act-sf.org/shareyourstory to We are continuing to celebrate A.C.T.’s 50th anniversary with a welcome to John, and thank you as always for being with us. tell us about your favorite memories of A.C.T. In the meantime, plethora of special events and master-artist residencies. It was a joy to have Tom Stoppard with us for The Hard Problem, and Yours, we are looking forward to hosting the legendary Peter Brook, who will join us in San Francisco for his landmark production of Battlefield this spring. At 92, Brook is one of the most revered directors in the world today, and we’re honored that he has chosen to be with us to share his ideas, teach master classes, Carey Perloff and participate in our festivities. On March 18, we will have a Artistic Director 11 MAR 30–APR 23 | THE GEARY THEATER APR 26–MAY 21 THE GEARY THEATER JUN 7–JUL 2 THE GEARY THEATER act-sf.org/join | 415.749.2228 PHOTO CREDITS: NEEDLES AND OPIUM : WELLESLEY ROBERTSON III IN NEEDLES AND OPIUM . PHOTO COURTESY EX MACHINA. BOTTOM ROW: BATTLEFIELD : PHOTO BY SIMON ANNAND. A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN : ARTWORK BY ADAM LARSON. CELEBRATE A.C.T.’S 50TH SEASON! TICKETS START AT $20. CAREY PERLOFF, Artistic Director PETER PASTREICH, Executive Director PRESENTS JOHN BY ANNIE BAKER DIRECTED BY KEN RUS SCHMOLL CREATIVE TEAM SCENIC DESIGNER COSTUME DESIGNER LIGHTING DESIGNER SOUND DESIGNER PROPS MASTER DRAMATURG CASTING DIRECTOR ASSISTANT DIRECTOR VOCAL COACH MARSHA GINSBERG JESSIE AMOROSO ROBERT HAND BRENDAN AANES JACQUELYN SCOTT MICHAEL PALLER JANET FOSTER, CSA SANGO TAJIMA LISA ANNE PORTER STAGE MANAGEMENT STAGE MANAGER ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER STAGE MANAGEMENT FELLOW CAST (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER) MERTIS GENEVIEVE ELIAS JENNY GEORGIA ENGEL* ANN MCDONOUGH* JOE PAULIK* STACEY YEN* UNDERSTUDIES ELIAS JENNY GENEVIEVE, MERTIS PATRICK ANDREW JONES** NAREA KANG** TRISH MULHOLLAND* DEIRDRE ROSE HOLLAND* CHRISTINA LARSON* CHARLOTTE MORRILL THIS PRODUCTION MADE POSSIBLE BY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS PRISCILLA AND KEITH GEESLIN John is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. World premiere produced by Signature Theatre, New York City James Houghton, Founding Artistic Director Erika Mallin, Executive Director PRODUCER ABBY AND GENE SCHNAIR ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS DRS. MICHAEL AND JANE MARMOR ANNE AND MICHELLE SHONK *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States **Member of the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2017, appearing in this production courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association 415.749. 2228 13 ABOUT THE PLAY MADNESS AND INTIMACY AN INTERVIEW WITH PLAYWRIGHT ANNIE BAKER PHOTO BY BRIGITTE LACOMBE BY MICHAEL PALLER Playwright Annie Baker 14 ACT-SF.ORG When Annie Baker was 17 years old, she started surreptitiously recording everyday conversations and transcribing them exactly as she heard them. When she went back and read the transcriptions, she was moved by the innate rhythm of mundane speech, the pauses and false starts, what was said and unsaid. Since that high school experiment, Baker has gone on to become an internationally renowned, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright. She is perhaps most well known for her distinctive dialogue, which realistically portrays the way human beings actually speak, complete with ums, ahs, repetitions, false starts, and silences. Before rehearsals began at A.C.T., we caught up with Baker over e-mail to talk about her newest play, John. Can you say something about how John came about? concerning itself with us? Do you feel that sort of presence I read that you got interested in reading “uncanny texts like yourself? Is it comforting, or sinister? Hoffmann and Bruno Schulz and German Expressionist films.” Wow. Well, I love these questions. They’re big ones. I’m not Does what you’re reading often find its way into what you’re sure I feel comfortable answering them in a public forum. writing? And where else did this play come from? They’re definitely questions I’ve thought about a lot and I was John came out of years of reading and thinking, and yes, what thinking about all of them while writing the play. I think the I’m reading always finds its way into my work. Reading is part of best way to know my thoughts on this subject is to read or writing for me. One book that was a huge influence on John was see the play. Basically everything every character says, even Victoria Nelson’s The Secret Life of Puppets which then led me when they’re disagreeing with each other, encapsulates how to all these other texts by Bruno Schulz and E. T. A. Hoffmann I feel about the matter. They’re all different sides of myself and Daniel Schreber. What else influenced the play? William and my feelings surrounding the issue. Around the time I hit James’s Varieties of Religious Experience, a lot of Kierkegaard 30, someone very wise said to me something like: “Thinking and Rudolf Otto, an essay by Rilke on dolls, Jung’s autobiography, you know what someone else is thinking is the definition of Freud’s essay on the uncanny, various trips to Gettysburg and madness.” Or maybe they said: “Trying to figure out what the people I met there, and Georgia Engel herself. I worked with other people are thinking will drive you mad.” And as simple Georgia for the first time in 2012 on a production of Uncle Vanya, as it sounds, it kind of blew my mind. I’d expended so much and I felt like the two of us understood each other completely. I energy in my first 30 years trying to know and anticipate what started writing John for her, and I kind of built the whole play other people were thinking and then convincing myself that I’d around her. Our work together and our mutual love and figured it out. There is also the danger, of course, of trying to understanding was a big part of the process. And then of course, figure out what God is thinking. And that’s a different brand of there’s the young couple in the play, and the madness of being the same madness. in a relationship that needs to end. Certain relationships I had in my twenties made me feel like I was going totally bonkers. And John, like others of your plays, takes place in a single location, while I’d always been resistant to writing a “relationship play,” I a bed-and-breakfast in Gettysburg. You’ve said that you’re was intrigued by making the somewhat young and immature interested in “trapping people in one space.” Is that an central relationship part of a larger, more expansive musing on aesthetic impulse, a psychological one, or something else? madness, and intimacy, and the numinous. It’s both an aesthetic and a psychological impulse (or I can’t really un-entwine them). It’s just something that theater can One of the things the play seems to be about is the do really, really well that film and television can’t: trap you in a possibility, or the sense, that we are being watched all the box. The restriction of and the literal borders around the stage time—or watched over, which can be either a sinister feeling space have always been thrilling to me. And when I write it’s or a comforting one, and by either some large, invisible really helpful to me to say to myself: we only see what happens force or by the small, inanimate objects that surround us. in this space. What happens outside of it is unknown. Do you have any sense about what, if anything, is out there 415.749. 2228 15 ABOUT THE PLAY A HIDDEN WELL AN INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR KEN RUS SCHMOLL PHOTO BY ZACK DEZON BY ELSPETH SWEATMAN “I find John terrifying,” says director Ken Rus Schmoll. “That’s what attracts me to it. It’s like driving down a road in the fog. different generations relate to one another. In addition to the young couple, there are two roles for actresses in their seventies You can only see a few yards ahead of you, and you never seem that are complex, far from the stereotypical “old ladies” that to arrive at your destination.” Schmoll is no stranger to plays permeate popular culture. that create this experience. Hailed as “an expert at sustained abnormality” by Time Out New York, Schmoll has directed works How does the title inform the play? that explore strangeness and illusion at many of New York’s It makes me think of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: the most illustrious off-Broadway theaters, including New York person that never arrives, an offstage force that pulls the play Theater Workshop, Clubbed Thumb, and Playwrights Horizons. along. It also makes me think of Sophocles’s Antigone, which As he prepared to direct John—his first Annie Baker play—at dramatically speaking is more about Creon, the person who has A.C.T., we caught up with him to chat about bed-and-breakfasts, to grapple with Antigone’s unwavering actions. Baker, and presenting reality onstage. Annie Baker is a playwright who is very specific about stage What research did you do for John? directions and set design. What is it like to work on a show Scenic designer Marsha Ginsberg and I went to Gettysburg, like this? Pennsylvania, and knocked on the doors of bed-and-breakfasts. Within structure lies freedom. By meticulously confronting We were invited into many of them and spent hours with the the details of the play, one senses the vast hidden mental and various proprietors looking through rooms, photographing emotional wells beneath the play. I don’t think of myself as an architectural details, taking notes on how they were decorated interpreter of plays, rather as a craftsperson or an engineer. To and organized. Secretly, we were compiling mental portraits of make emptiness, one makes a cup, as the Japanese saying goes. the proprietors themselves, to understand the type of person who would choose to run a B and B. What are the challenges of directing Baker’s work? There is a lot that is unspoken. There are the long pauses that What is your favorite thing about John? everyone associates with her plays. This requires a thorough I love the characters. Each of them is deeply knowable and exploration of what the characters are thinking. Thinking is deeply mysterious. One of the play’s preoccupations is how 16 ACT-SF.ORG OPPOSITE Director Ken Rus Schmoll. ABOVE Scenic designer Marsha Ginsberg’s bed-and-breakfast research photos from a trip to Gettysburg with Schmoll. potentially as dramatic a force onstage as speaking. Personally, I am obsessed with “thinking” onstage: what actors think, what characters think, how thinking actually occurs, how thinking is represented to be happening. What makes Baker’s plays so powerful? They are generous with audiences. There is something immediately recognizable in each of her plays, often the setting (a movie theater, a bed-and-breakfast), sometimes a situation— friends hanging out. At the same time, she does not fill in every detail of the story. She allows space for the audience to project themselves into her worlds and to wander among the thoughts of the characters, and their own thoughts, too. Annie’s plays are like a communal garden divided into individual plots, where each audience member may plant whatever he or she prefers. Why this play now? In a moment when many people are feeling an urgency—to do Want to know more about John? Words on Plays is full of original essays and interviews that give you a behind-thescenes look at John —perfect for reading before the play, during intermission, or when you get home! Proceeds from sales of Words on Plays benefit A.C.T.’s education programs. something, to figure out what to do—John asks us to consider going in through the side door. The side door takes more time, we have to figure out where it is, and it involves a bit of a journey. 415.749. 2228 AVAILABLE IN THE BOX OFFICE, LOBBY, AND ONLINE AT ACT-SF.ORG/WORDSONPLAYS. 17 ’ WHO S WHO IN JOHN GEORGIA ENGEL* (Mertis) recently Our Town (Mrs. Soames). On Night at Hartford Stage; The Winter’s television, she was in Law & Order, The Tale and Haroun and the Sea of Stories is thrilled to be Good Wife, and All My Children (Esther). at the Williamstown Theatre Festival; Macbeth and As You Like It at the rediscovering the role of Mertis JOE PAULIK* Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival; in the West Coast (Elias) has many and the world premiere of Love in the premiere of John at off-Broadway Wars at Bard SummerScape, directed A.C.T. She created credits, including by Ken Rus Schmoll. In New York, Yen the role in 2015 at New York’s Signature Stupid Fucking Bird has premiered new work with such Theatre and received an Obie Award for (The Pearl Theatre theater companies as Ars Nova, The Distinguished Performance by an Company), Love & Mad Ones, Clubbed Thumb, The Play Actress. Other recent New York Money (Signature Company, and The Public Theater. downtown credits include Anton Theatre), P. S. Jones and the Frozen City Internationally, Yen has toured The Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at Soho Rep. (New Ohio Theatre), Timon of Athens Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at the King’s (adapted by Annie Baker, directed by (The Public Theater), A Feminine Ending Theatre Edinburgh, Singapore’s Sam Gold) and Will Eno’s Middletown at (Playwrights Horizons), The Sporting Esplanade Theatre, and New York’s Vineyard Theatre (directed by Ken Rus Life (Vineyard Theatre), and Measure acclaimed Under the Radar Festival. Schmoll). On Broadway, Engel’s credits for Measure (The Acting Shakespeare Television credits include Elementary, include The Drowsy Chaperone, My One Company). His regional credits include Madam Secretary, Treme, The Blacklist, and Only, and Hello, Dolly! Her television The Power of Duff (Geffen Playhouse High Maintenance, Gossip Girl, credits include Hot in Cleveland, and Huntington Theatre Company), Unforgettable, The Good Wife, Blue Everybody Loves Raymond (three Emmy Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Bloods, Ugly Betty, Nurse Jackie, and Award nominations), Coach, and The Sawyer and Twelfth Night (Hartford CSI: NY. Yen received her BA from Mary Tyler Moore Show (two Emmy Stage), Moonchildren (Berkshire Theatre Brown University and her MFA from Award nominations). Group), Major Barbara (Guthrie Theater), New York University’s Tisch School of Old Wicked Songs (Westport Country the Arts. ANN MCDONOUGH* Playhouse), and Eurydice, Cabaret & (Genevieve) was (Williamstown Theatre Festival). His most recently at television credits include Guiding Light, PATRICK ANDREW JONES** Arena Stage in The Good Wife, and Person of Interest. (Understudy) is in Washington, DC, Paulik holds an MFA from New York his third year of the in The City of University’s graduate acting program, A.C.T. Master of Fine Conversation. At and he completed the Shakespeare Arts Program and Main, and Kilroy Was Here Lincoln Center Theater in New York, course of study at the Royal Academy she was in Abe Lincoln in Illinois and of Dramatic Art. recently made his Geary debut with A Christmas Carol. Dinner at Eight. She was in the original Jones is the recipient of the 2015 M.F.A. production of A. R. Gurney’s The Dining STACEY YEN* Program “Hit Your Stride” scholarship. Room (Playwrights Horizons), and she (Jenny) makes her Some of his favorite credits with the was in it again, 25 years later, when A.C.T. debut with M.F.A. Program are KJ in The Aliens for the cast of the Keen Company John. Yen’s theater the A.C.T. Sky Festival, Macbeth in production won a Drama Desk Award credits include A Macbeth, and Tranio in The Taming of for Outstanding Ensemble Performance. Confederacy of the Shrew. Along with working Also in New York, she appeared in the Dunces with Nick extensively in the New York City theater original productions of Sister Mary Offerman at the scene, he has worked in the Bay Area Ignatius Explains It All for You, What I Huntington Theatre Company; Mary performing such roles as Ferdinand in Did Last Summer, Mastergate, Zimmerman’s Arabian Nights at Arena The Tempest and Charles Musgrove in Uncommon Women and Others, and Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Jane Austen’s Persuasion at the Fables for Friends. At Long Wharf Lookingglass Theatre, and Kansas City Livermore Shakespeare Festival. Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, she Repertory Theatre; Mirror of the Invisible has performed in 12 productions, most World at Goodman Theatre; Twelfth *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States **Member of the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2017, appearing in this production courtesy of Actors Equity Association 18 ACT-SF.ORG NAREA KANG** for Outstanding Play), The Aliens (Understudy) is in (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater; Obie her third year of the Award for Best New American Play), A.C.T. Master of Fine Body Awareness (Atlantic Theater Arts Program. She Company; Drama Desk and Outer was last seen on the Critics Circle Award nominations for Geary stage in A Oustanding Play/the John Gassner Christmas Carol and Award), and an adaptation of as Bo in Tom Stoppard’s The Hard Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (Soho Rep., Problem. Recent M.F.A. Program credits Drama Desk Award nomination for include Doubt, A Parable (Sister Outstanding Revival), for which she Aloysius), Horton Foote’s Blind Date also designed the costumes. Her plays (Dolores) and The Actor (Elizabeth), have been produced at more than 200 Cardenio (Camila), and Macbeth (Lady theaters throughout the US and in Macbeth). Kang has worked as an actor, more than a dozen countries, including teaching artist, and producer in Seattle productions at the Royal National and San Francisco. Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre in London and the Moscow Art Theatre in TRISH MULHOLLAND* Moscow. Other recent honors include a (Understudy) is Playwright Award, an American a graduate of Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Australia’s National Literature, a New York Drama Critics’ Theatre Drama Circle Award, and the Cullman Center School. She was a Fellowship at The New York Public top-rating, award- Library. She is a resident playwright Guggenheim Fellowship, The Steinberg winning radio host in Melbourne, at Signature Theatre and a Master Australia, and hosted radio shows in Artist in Residence at the Playwriting Italy and France, before finally settling MFA Program at Hunter College. in the Bay Area and returning to theater. A core company member of Berkeley’s KEN RUS SCHMOLL (director) Shotgun Players, Mulholland has has recently directed MJ Kaufman’s appeared on stages around the Bay Sagittarius Ponderosa for the National Area including A.C.T., Aurora Theatre Asian American Theatre Company, Company, and the San Francisco Lucas Hnath’s Hillary and Clinton at Shakespeare Festival. Favorite roles the Philadelphia Theatre Company, include Mother Courage, Agave in The Anne Washburn’s Antlia Pneumatica Bacchae, the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, at Playwrights Horizons, Max Posner’s the updated diva in The Seagull in The Judy for Page 73 Productions, Kate Hamptons, and Woman in the West E. Ryan’s Card and Gift for Clubbed Coast premiere of Edward Albee’s The Thumb, Jenny Schwartz and Todd Play about the Baby (Shotgun Players). Almond’s Iowa at Playwrights Horizons, Memory Caring The city’s finest memory care community features higher staff-to-resident ratio, advanced techniques and programs. Only 37 apartments. Call Candiece at 415.345.5072 or visit rgplaza.org. Ayad Akhtar’s The Invisible Hand ANNIE BAKER (Playwright) has at New York Theatre Workshop, written many plays, including John John Banville’s Love in the Wars at (Signature Theatre; Obie Award, Bard SummerScape, and Will Eno’s Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel award Middletown at the Vineyard Theatre. nominations for Outstanding Play), He is a usual suspect at New York The Flick (Playwrights Horizons/ Theatre Workshop, an affiliated artist Barrow Street Theatre; Pulitzer Prize with Clubbed Thumb, co-mentor of the for Drama, Hull-Warriner Award, Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Obie a three-time Sundance Institute Award for Playwriting), Circle Mirror Theatre Program alum, a former co- Transformation (Playwrights Horizons; chair of the Soho Rep. Writer/Director Obie Award for Best New American Lab, and the recipient of two Obie Founded by Jewish Family and Children’s Services and Mount Zion Health Fund Play, Drama Desk Award nomination Awards and a Lucille Lortel Award RCFE# 385600125 415.749. 2228 Here, you’re like family. 2180 Post Street San Francisco, CA 94115 rgplaza.org 19 nomination. Schmoll’s upcoming Guggenheim Works & Process); Brooklyn Academy of Music, Opéra de projects include Tony Meneses’s The Red Dog Howls (New York Theatre Québec), Ariadne auf Naxos (Opéra Women of Padilla at Two River Theatre. Workshop); A Map of Virtue (13P); and National de Bordeaux), Methusalem Telephone (The Foundry Theatre). Projekt and Don Pasquale (Deutsches MARSHA GINSBERG (Scenic Ginsberg has designed opera projects Nationaltheater Weimar), and Die Designer) is an Obie Award–winning with directors Christopher Alden, Roy Entführung aus dem Serail (Theater scenic and costume designer working Rallo, Lydia Steier, Jay Scheib, and Ted Basel), among others. Her recent in theater and opera in the US and Huffman. These include Transformations theater credits include The Undertaking Europe. Her previous work with Ken and Cosí fan tutte (San Francisco (Barrow Street Theatre), Nikolai and Rus Schmoll includes Love in the Wars Opera/Merola Opera Program), L’Orfeo the Others (Lincoln Center Theater/ (Bard SummerScape); Proserpina (Konzert Theater Bern), The Rake’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, directed (Spoleto Festival USA); It Happens Progress (Staatstheater Braunschweig), by David Cromer), and Angel Reapers, Like This (Tanglewood Music Center/ Powder Her Face (New York City Opera/ created by Martha Clarke (Signature Theatre). Ginsberg is the recipient of many grants and awards, including the 2016 New York State Council on the music dance theater Cal Performances U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A , 2016/17 S E A S O N B E R K E L E Y Arts grant for Faust 2.0 (Mabou Mines), the New York Foundation for the Arts Architecture Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile at the Greek! Three of the world’s most acclaimed musicians take the stage at UC Berkeley’s Greek Theatre for a breathtaking celebration of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Communications Groups Design Fellowship, an Elliot Norton Award, The Watermill Center Residency, and The MacDowell Colony Residency. JESSIE AMOROSO (Costume Designer) is in his eighth season at A.C.T. and is currently the costume director for the company. Bay Area theater design and styling credits include work at the California Theatre Center, New Conservatory Theatre Center, Berkeley Playhouse, Solano College Theatre, Central Works Theater Company, Marines’ Memorial Theatre, the Herbst Theatre, the Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason Center, and the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre. A.C.T. credits are Ah, Wilderness!; Love and Information; Testament with Seana April 30 G R E E K T H E AT R E McKenna; Underneath the Lintel; and Chester Bailey. Other highlights include designing two world premieres for Brad Erickson at New Conservatory Theatre Center, most recently American Dream. At Project Artaud he designed Caligula, featuring Nancy Carlin, and at Z Space he designed A Round-Heeled Woman, starring Sharon Gless. Volunteer designs for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS include Broadway Bares 23: United Strips of calperformances.org 510.642.9988 America and Broadway Bares SF: Tech Tails. He is a graduate of California State University, Hayward (now California State University, East Bay). 20 ACT-SF.ORG ROBERT HAND (Lighting The Lily’s Revenge, The Brothers Designer) most recently designed Size, Goldfish, and Octopus (Magic Monstress and Chester Bailey, for Theatre); Stories by Emma Donoghue which he received the Theatre Bay and Colm Tóibín and Stories by Alice Area Award for Outstanding Lighting Munro (Word for Word Performing Design (A.C.T.); Seared and Stage Kiss Arts Company); Assassins and God’s (San Francisco Playhouse); Home in 7 Plot (Shotgun Players); Hundred Days by choreographer Amy Seiwert and and The Companion Piece (Z Space); Boiling Point by choreographer Darrell American Hwangap (The Play Company, Grand Moultrie (Atlanta Ballet); and New York); and as art director for Park Peter Pan by choreographer Jorden Pictures, Paper Dog Video, and Heist. Morris (Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre). Additional credits include lighting MICHAEL PALLER (Dramaturg) designs for the English National Ballet, joined A.C.T. as resident dramaturg and North Carolina Theatre, Milwaukee director of humanities in August 2005, Ballet, Scottish Ballet, Anchorman and since then he has dramaturged 2: The Legend Continues, and Scary more than 50 productions and Movie 5. He is also the former resident workshops. He began his professional lighting designer for Atlanta Ballet, career as literary manager at Center where he designed more than 25 Repertory Theatre (Cleveland), then new works, many of which remain worked as a play reader and script in their permanent repertoire. consultant for Manhattan Theatre for George Street Playhouse, the Designer) has designed sound for Berkshire Theatre Festival, Barrington recent productions, including The Hard Stage Company, Long Wharf Theatre, Problem, The Unfortunates, and Chester Roundabout Theatre Company, and Bailey at A.C.T.; Othello at California others. He dramaturged the Russian Shakespeare Theater; Cowboy premiere of Tennessee Williams’s Small Bob at Ars Nova; Triangle (Theatre Craft Warnings at the Sovremennik Bay Area Award for Outstanding Theater in Moscow. Paller is the author Sound Design), The Life of the Party, of Gentlemen Callers: Tennessee Confederates, and The Lake Effect Williams, Homosexuality, and Mid- for TheatreWorks; Fire in Dreamland Twentieth Century Drama (Palgrave at Kansas City Repertory Theatre; Macmillan), Williams in an Hour The Way West at Marin Theatre (Smith & Kraus), and A Five-Act Play: Company; Rapture, Blister, Burn at 50 Years of A.C.T. (Chronicle Books). Aurora Theatre Company; The Hundred He has also written theater and book Flowers Project (Will Glickman Award reviews for the Washington Post, for Best New Play) and Truck Stop at Village Voice, Newsday, and Mirabella Crowded Fire Theater; Mutt at Impact magazine. He recently adapted the Theatre; and Abigail’s Party, Bloody text for the San Francisco Symphony’s Personal attention Bloody Andrew Jackson, and The multimedia presentation of Peer Gynt. Aliens at San Francisco Playhouse. Before his arrival at A.C.T., he taught thoughtful litigation at Columbia University and the State JACQUELYN SCOTT (Props Master) works as props master, set University of New York at Purchase. designer and art director for theaters JANET FOSTER, CSA (Casting and film companies throughout the Bay Director) joined A.C.T. as the casting Area. Her previous credits include She director in the 2011–12 season. On Loves Me, Seared, Stage Kiss, Company, Broadway she cast The Light in the Tree, Into the Woods, Jerusalem, Piazza (Artios Award nomination), Abigail’s Party, and A Behanding in Lennon, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and Spokane (San Francisco Playhouse); Taking Sides (co-cast). Off-Broadway Fool for Love, A Lie of the Mind, Buried credits include Lucy, Brundibar, True Child, The Happy Ones, Annapurna, Love, Endpapers, The Dying Gaul, The 415.749. 2228 Proud to Support A.C.T. final resolution Our goal is to preserve our client’s dignity and humanity. F A M I LY BRENDAN AANES (Sound L A W Club, and has since been a dramaturg FA M I LY L AW G R O U P, P. C . 575 Market Street, Suite 4000 San Francisco, CA 94105 415.834.1120 www.sflg.com 21 A Love Story, Floyd Collins, The PRISCILLA AND KEITH GEESLIN (Executive Producers) Monogamist, A Cheever Evening, Later have produced the A.C.T. shows Life, and many more at Playwrights Satchmo at the Waldorf, Old Hats, Horizons. Regionally, she has worked Underneath the Lintel, Armistead at Intiman Theatre, Seattle Repertory Maupin’s Tales of the City, Scapin, Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, The Tosca Project, Curse of the Starving Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Dallas Class, and The Rivals, among others. Theater Center, Yale Repertory Theatre, Priscilla currently serves as vice chair Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre of the A.C.T. Board of Trustees, of which Company, The Old Globe, Center Stage in she has been a member since 2003, Baltimore, Westport Country Playhouse, as well as chair of the Development and the American Repertory Theater. Committee. She also serves on the Film, television, and radio credits include boards of the San Francisco Symphony, Cosby (CBS), Tracey Takes On New York Grace Cathedral, and chairs the (HBO), Lewis Black’s The Deal, Advice NARAL ProChoice America Foundation from a Caterpillar, The Day That Lehman Board. A principal of Francisco Died (BBC World Service and Blackhawk Partners, Keith is the president of San Productions; Peabody, SONY, and Francisco Opera’s board of trustees. Maiden’s Prayer, The Trojan Women: TOP BILLING AT THE MORTIMER Come before or after your A.C.T. show and enjoy hand crafted cocktails and delicious bites! Show your Show ticket and receive a complimentary CHEF’S APPETIZER with the purchase of one beverage. Wincott awards), and “T” Is for Tom (Tom Stoppard radio plays, WNYC and WQXR). SPECIAL THANKS Peninsula Piano Brokers DEIRDRE ROSE HOLLAND* (Stage Manager) has worked on many regional theater projects and productions, including the 2016 New Strands Festival, On Beckett, Chester Bailey, Let There Be Love, and Ah, Wilderness! at A.C.T.; The Liar at Santa Cruz Shakespeare; Othello, Twelfth Night, and Lady Windermere’s Fan at at Hotel Adagio 550 Geary Street, SF 94102 415-775-5000 hoteladagiosf.com ONE BLOCK FROM THE GEARY THEATER California Shakespeare Theater; Daddy Long Legs, Cyrano, and 2 Pianos 4 Hands at TheatreWorks; The Big Meal, Game On, Next Fall, Next to Normal, A Christmas Carol (2011 and 2012), and Spring Awakening at San Jose Repertory Theatre; The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later and the world premiere of Bonnie & Clyde at La Jolla Playhouse; and the Shakespeare Festival 2011, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (2010), and The Mystery of Irma Vep at The Old Globe. Holland holds an MFA in stage management from UC San Diego. CHRISTINA LARSON* (Assistant Stage Manager) most recently assistant stage-managed The Hard Problem, The Last Five Years, and The Unfortunates at A.C.T. Her favorite shows as production assistant have been King Lear (California Shakespeare Theater), Sister Play (Magic Theatre), Tribes (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), and Macbeth (California Shakespeare Theater). 22 ACT-SF.ORG ARTWORK BY ADAM L ARSON INSIDE A.C.T. LOVE AND HAIGHT LOOKING AHEAD TO A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN with the Joplin family. “They had wanted to do a new show about Janis,” says Johnson. “[The meeting] was going to be 20 minutes and turned into a two-and-a-half hour meeting. One of the things [her family] talked about was cleaning day in the Joplin house. Dorothy Joplin [Janis’s mother] had wanted to be a Broadway singer. Circumstances happened and she stayed in BY SIMON HODGSON Port Arthur, Texas, and had a family. On cleaning day they would play Broadway show tunes, and each Saturday was a different She breathed in air. She breathed out soul. Janis Joplin was, for cast album. They listened to West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and many San Franciscans, the voice of the Summer of Love. Born Porgy and Bess. Janis played ‘Summertime’ over and over, and it in 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas, Joplin was a quiet, blues-loving went on to become one of her greatest hits.” bohemian girl. But in 1964, she headed west and fell headlong into ’60s San Francisco, living in Haight-Ashbury, recording “Summertime” is just one of the singer’s favorites featured in tracks with emerging musicians, and diving deep into the A Night with Janis Joplin, joining such songs as “Piece of My city’s counterculture. Within two years, she had joined the Heart,” “Me and Bobby McGee,” and “Ball and Chain.” Framed psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, by these classic ’60s tracks, the musical focuses on Janis’s story and she was earning a reputation across West Coast venues for as she tells us about her roots, her growth, and the singers her extraordinary voice, laced with heart, soul, and Southern whose sound influenced her own. Janis isn’t just a celebration Comfort. By the time she performed at the Monterey Pop of Joplin’s raw harmony, but also a salute to the soulful vocals of Festival in the summer of 1967, Joplin was at the top of her game. five other iconic twentieth-century artists: Nina Simone, Odetta, Etta James, Bessie Smith, and Aretha Franklin. As San Francisco “At A.C.T. we have long been invested in San Francisco stories,” gears up to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its Haight- says Artistic Director Carey Perloff. “So when the opportunity Ashbury heyday, what better way to celebrate our own 50th came to bring A Night with Janis Joplin to San Francisco in anniversary . . . and to rock The Geary like it’s 1967. celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, it was irresistible.” For the show’s creator, Randy Johnson—producer of theatrical shows about artists from Elvis Presley to Conway Twitty, Louis A Night with Janis Joplin runs June 7 to July 2 at The Geary Theater. Learn more at act-sf.org/janis. Prima to Patsy Cline—the idea for the show began at a meeting 415.749. 2228 23 PHOTO BY KEVIN BERNE INSIDE A.C.T. FIFTY YEARS OF DISCOVERY A HISTORY OF NEW WORK AT A.C.T. from many other A.C.T. productions; he was most recently seen on the Geary stage as the Ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol). Beginning in 1973, Executive Director Edward Hastings mounted simple productions of new plays in the 49-seat Play Room, located on the first floor of 450 Geary Street. This project, funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, developed BY SHANNON STOCKWELL into a program called Plays in Progress (PIP). Tickets were free to subscribers, and in the program’s first season, a total of five Throughout our 50 years of existence, A.C.T. has been a home thousand people came to the performances. Over 20 years for new work, commissions, and world premieres. We have at A.C.T., 84 new plays were produced through PIP, mostly by always supported new plays—like Annie Baker’s John, which West Coast playwrights (who Hastings felt had fewer chances premiered in New York in 2015—and we’ve done so since at productions than East Coast playwrights). Some writers that the beginning. went through PIP include short-story writer Raymond Carver; In fact, A.C.T.’s second season contained a total of four new Where Art Thou?); Mark Medoff, who went on to win a Tony plays: Brian McKinney’s Deedle, Deedle, Dumpling, My Son God; Award for Children of a Lesser God; and William M. Hoffman, Nagle Jackson’s Caught in the Act; Jerome Kilty’s Don’t Shoot, whose play As Is was produced on Broadway in 1985. filmmaker Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men; O Brother, Mabel! It’s Your Husband; and Long Live Life, also by Kilty, which was based on the letters of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov PIP offered playwrights the opportunity to hone their work, but (played by Ken Ruta, whom Bay Area audiences may remember it also provided actors in the Advanced Training Program (the 24 ACT-SF.ORG PHOTO BY KEVIN BERNE PHOTO BY KEVIN BERNE PHOTO BY RYAN MONTGOMERY OPPOSITE Rachel Ticotin and Nol Simonse in The Tosca Project. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Hiro Kanagawa and Carrie Paff in After the War; Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City; A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff at a reading of Monstress. precursor to A.C.T.’s acclaimed Master of Fine Arts Program) the Perloff is also a fierce advocate of commissioning new opportunity to act in and direct new plays. Hastings said of PIP: translations, by contemporary American playwrights, of great “We’re part of the theatrical maternity ward instead of being just foreign works. At A.C.T., new translations are treated as new plays keepers of the archives.” and receive intensive workshops before they are staged. Among Also showing A.C.T.’s commitment to new work is the Young are Paul Walsh (Ibsen and Strindberg), Timberlake Wertenbaker Conservatory’s Grace Magill New Plays Program, which Young (the Greeks), and Melinda Lopez (Federico García Lorca). the playwrights with whom we have worked on new translations Conservatory Director Craig Slaight started in 1989 to develop plays, by professional playwrights, about the world as seen Meanwhile, New Strands, A.C.T.’s play development and through the eyes of young people. Since the program began, it commissioning program, began in earnest in 2014. The inaugural has fostered the creation of more than 40 new plays by English- New Strands Festival—when we first presented these works to speaking playwrights—including Ursula Rani Sarma, adapter of the public—was held in February 2016 and ignited The Strand A.C.T.’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, whose play Riot premiered Theater with work from every artistic discipline, from film to with a YC cast in 2010. dance to animation to music to theater. In the past decade, Artistic Director Carey Perloff—always a A.C.T.’s mission is partly to conserve, renew, and reinvent champion of new plays—has steered A.C.T. in the direction of theatrical traditions, but it is also committed to exploring tackling new work and commissions with increased fervor. These new artistic forms and has been for 50 years. While classics new plays have included such favorites as After the War (2007), constantly remind us of where we have been and how our past The Tosca Project (2010), Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City connects to the present, new works are vital in making sure (2011), Monstress (2015), and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2017). theater stays fresh and relevant to modern audiences. The conversations generated by the mixture of the old and the new is what makes A.C.T. truly special. 415.749. 2228 25 INSIDE A.C.T. EPIC SIMPLICITY A SNEAK PEEK AT PETER BROOK’S BATTLEFIELD BY ELSPETH SWEATMAN In 1985, revolutionary director Peter Brook shook the theater For Brook and his writing partner, Marie-Hélène Estienne, world with The Mahabharata—a marathon nine-hour production The Mahabharata’s story of coming face-to-face with the of a Sanskrit epic poem written 2,500 years ago. Using every consequences of conflict has striking connections to modern tool in his extensive theatrical toolbox, he brought to life this times. King Yudhishthira, the protagonist of Battlefield, reminds story of familial dysfunction, power struggles, destiny, and Brook of men like J. Robert Oppenheimer, the developer of responsibility. “That play was the event of the New York theater the atom bomb. He “lived a tortured life because his discovery season,” says New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley. won the war, but fell with such horror on Hiroshima. And this “Theater cognoscenti lined up for the privilege of sitting from same Hiroshima question is there today in so many parts of the morning into night.” world,” says Brook. Now, more than 30 years later, the legendary director has The director’s relationship with A.C.T. predates Brook’s returned to this rich material to create Battlefield. While groundbreaking Mahabharata. In 1972, Brook and the Royal Brook’s first production of The Mahabharata was epic in Shakespeare Company brought his circus-inspired Midsummer every way—cast size, sets, costumes, and scope—Battlefield Night’s Dream to the Geary stage. More recently, Brook and is a study in economy: it zooms in on one specific moment Estienne adapted The Suit—a story of betrayal and revenge of the ancient epic, focusing on the aftermath of a single set in a South Africa weighed down by apartheid—which conflict. Featuring only four actors and one musician on a bare played to sold-out audiences and rave reviews in 2014. Now, stage, Battlefield’s elegant simplicity gives it a raw power. “In not only will Brook’s Battlefield be on the Geary stage, but something very, very concentrated you can find an incredible the director himself will be in residence at A.C.T., offering richness,” said Brook in a recent interview with Slant magazine. masterclasses, discussions, and further exploration of this must-see theatrical creation. 26 ACT-SF.ORG PHOTOS BY SIMON ANNAND “PETER BROOK’S INCLUSIVE AND IMAGINATIVE THEATRICAL VISION CHANGED THE WAY WE’VE ALL MADE THEATER FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS.” A.C.T. ARTISTIC DIRECTOR CAREY PERLOFF ABOVE Carole Karemera (left) and Ery Nzaramba in a scene from Battlefield. RIGHT FROM TOP Battlefield actors Carole Karemera, Ery Nzaramba, Sean O’Callaghan, and Jared McNeil. “At age 92, Peter Brook remains one of the greatest master directors in the world,” says A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff. “His inclusive and imaginative theatrical vision changed the way we’ve all made theater for more than 50 years, so it’s particularly moving to have his stunning work represented as part of A.C.T.’s 50th-anniversary season. Battlefield’s poetic, magical form takes us to the essence of theatrical storytelling. All it takes is a good story on a bare stage to captivate an audience and help them imagine a whole world.” Battlefield runs April 26 to May 21 at The Geary Theater. To learn more, visit act-sf.org/battlefield. 415.749. 2228 27 PHOTO BY EUGENE AHN INSIDE A.C.T. CITIZEN DRAMATURGS HOW A.C.T.’S NEW STRANDS FESTIVAL IS CHANGING SAN FRANCISCO BY SIMON HODGSON Last year’s inaugural New Strands Festival brought hundreds of What’s different about the festival this year? What can we look theatergoers to The Strand Theater and invigorated the Central forward to? Market neighborhood with electrifying new work. Featuring DJ The programming this year is inclusive of the new work sets, staged readings, and performances spanning dance, music, happening across all of A.C.T.’s departments. Over the last animation, and theater, the festival opened A.C.T.’s doors to the season, we’ve linked new-work development more deeply Bay Area community and to new generations of theatergoers. with our M.F.A. Program actors, community partners, and our The four-day event established The Strand as a home for dynamic Education & Community Programs. Rarely does an artist have new work, A.C.T.’s very own incubator for artists of all kinds. the option of utilizing all the departments of an institution Now, as we approach this year’s New Strands Festival, we sat to generate a piece, so providing access to A.C.T.’s down with A.C.T. Associate Artistic Director Andy Donald, who performance and actor-training programs has made for some is leading the team organizing the festival, to talk about 2017’s fascinating commissions that will have their first showings at festival lineup, the opportunity posed by Central Market, and the this year’s festival. benefits of sharing secrets with audiences. The festival’s offerings this year are the perfect snapshot of A.C.T. What did A.C.T.’s artistic team learn from the 2016 New today: a devised piece about fathers and sons by extraordinary Strands Festival? artists from multiple disciplines; an intergenerational Bay Area Our major discovery was a growing appetite in this city for story written for the M.F.A. Program class of 2018; our latest witnessing the theatrical process—not just productions—and Collaborative Youth Arts Project with students from the A.C.T. an eagerness among San Franciscans to participate in the birth Young Conservatory, Oakland’s Destiny Arts Center, and our of new work. We realized that if we let our audiences in at an public high school residencies; and two brand-new musicals, earlier stage, they take on a shared ownership of the work with one about southern churchgoing and the other about tech our artists and assume a role as “citizen dramaturgs.” startups. We’ve also moved the festival to late spring to give it a feeling of culmination, of reflection on the past season while peeking into our future. 28 ACT-SF.ORG PHOTO BY STEFAN COHEN PHOTO BY JAY YAMADA PHOTO BY JAY YAMADA CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Julie Adamo, Maria-Christina Oliveras, and Joaquín Torres in Melinda Lopez’s adaptation of Yerma; Shona Tucker and Akilah A. Walker in Christina Anderson’s How to Catch Creation; Turbulence Lab with Keith Hennessy and Turbulence Company. OPPOSITE Miwa Matreyek in This World Made Itself. Who are the new voices who will be part of New Strands as we’re dreaming up new ways and new projects that will attract it progresses? the best artists to San Francisco to create that work. We’ve established a brand-new residency program—the New Strands Residency—which links us with a nationally recognized What role does the New Strands Festival play for San Francisco? incubator theater to bring three playwrights to the Bay Area When The Strand opened in 2015, A.C.T. became uniquely and workshop their newest pieces in the festival. Our inaugural situated at a nexus of San Francisco, where new tenants in the partner is New York’s Ma-Yi Theater Company, one of the tech industry collide with long-standing cultural, government, nation’s most prominent Asian American ensembles. We could and social-service institutions. This seemed like the perfect not be more excited to introduce these new voices to a city with neighborhood to create an annual festival about new work such a robust, diverse Asian American population. My hope is development, artistic expression, audience interaction, and that San Francisco gets to know these writers through various innovative ideas. panel discussions and happy hours scheduled around their festival presentations. The New Strands Festival will be an open house, with audiences How does the New Strands Festival fit within A.C.T.’s The Strand can do for this vital part of town. With so much larger story? progress happening outside our doors, we wanted to harness that For half a century, the focus at A.C.T. has been on the craft and energy by envisioning a future for San Francisco inside as well. moving freely from one event to another, showcasing what performance of the theater artist. With the opening of The Strand, we saw an opportunity to create this festival and invite our audience into the artist’s method. On a practical level, it also provides us with an unmovable deadline for wrestling work into shape! We’re not looking to present final products during this weekend, but rather show our audience that we’re making The 2017 New Strands Festival is free and open to the public and runs May 19 to 21. To find out more, visit act-sf.org/newstrands. strides on the commissioned work that they support, and that 415.749. 2228 29 FRANNIE FLEISHHACKER, CO-CHAIR • ROBINA RICCITIELLO, CO-CHAIR Producers Circle members make annual contributions of $12,000 or more to A.C.T. We are privileged to recognize these members’ generosity during the January 1, 2016, to January 1, 2017, period. For information about Producers Circle membership, please contact Tiffany Redmon at 415.439.2482 or [email protected]. *Member of A.C.T. Next Stage Crew SEASON PRESENTERS ($100,000+) EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS ($25,000–$49,999) Frannie Fleischhacker Priscilla and Keith Geeslin Fred M. Levin and Nancy Livingston, The Shenson Foundation Barbara Ravizza and John S. Osterweis* Arthur Rock and Toni Rembe Mary and Steven Swig Laurie and Jeff Ubben Lesley Ann Clement Mrs. Robyn Coles and Dr. Tony Coles Jerome L. and Thao N. Dodson Michael G. Dovey Bill and Phyllis Draper Sarah and Tony Earley Kevin and Celeste Ford Mr. and Mrs. Gordon P. Getty Dianne and Ron Hoge Chris and Holly Hollenbeck Jo S. Hurley Christopher and Leslie Johnson John Little and Heather Stallings Little Janet V. Lustgarten Nion McEvoy and Leslie Berriman Donald J. and Toni Ratner Miller Kenneth and Gisele Miller David and Carla Riemer Abby and Gene Schnair Kathleen Scutchfield* COMPANY SPONSORS ($50,000-$99,000) Ray and Dagmar Dolby Family Fund Jeri Lynn and Jeffrey W. Johnson Burt and Deedee McMurtry Jack and Susy Wadsworth Valli Benesch and Bob Tandler Doug Tilden Susan A. Van Wagner Aaron Vermut and Adriana Lopez Vermut Barbara and Stephan Vermut Kay Yun and Andre Neumann-Loreck* PRODUCERS ($12,000–$24,999) Anonymous Paul Asente and Ron Jenks Clay Foundation–West Lloyd and Janet Cluff* Daniel E. Cohn and Lynn Brinton Carlotta and Robert Dathe Dr. Caroline Emmett and Dr. Russell Rydel Concepción and Irwin Federman Linda Jo Fitz Rose Hagan and Mark Lemley Kirke and Nancy Sawyer Hasson Luba Kipnis and David Russel Rodman and Ann Marymor Don and Judy McCubbin Mr. and Mrs. Robert McGrath Mr. and Mrs. J. A. McQuown Mary and Gene Metz Mr. Byron R. Meyer Tim Mott and Pegan Brooke Paula and John Murphy Elsa and Neil Pering Mr. and Mrs. Tom Perkins Rich Rava and Elisa Neipp Robina Riccitiello Sally and Toby Rosenblatt Anne and Michelle Shonk Cherie Sorokin Jeff and Maria Spears Mr. David G. Steele Ruth and Alan L. Stein Barry Williams and Lalita Tademy Nola Yee DIANNE HOGE, CO-CHAIR • NOLA YEE, CO-CHAIR Directors Circle members make annual contributions of $2,000 to $11,999 to A.C.T. We are privileged to recognize these members’ generosity during the January 1, 2016, to January 1, 2017, period. For information about Directors Circle membership, please contact Tiffany Redmon at 415.439.2482 or [email protected]. *Member of A.C.T. Next Stage Crew ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS ($6,000–$11,999) Paul Angelo Valerie Barth and Peter Booth Wiley Kathleen Bennett and Tom Malloy Kenneth Berryman Dr. Barbara L. Bessey Linda Joanne Brown Gayle and Steve Brugler Drs. Devron Char and Valerie Charlton-Char Mr. and Mrs. David Crane Richard Davis-Lowell and Bill Lowell Joan Dea Carol Dollinger Mr. Joseph W. Donner III Barb and Gary Erickson Mr. Rodney Ferguson and Ms. Kathleen Egan Vicki and David Fleishhacker Myrna and Tom Frankel Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Gallagher Dr. and Mrs. Richard E. Geist Arnie and Shelly Glassberg Dr. Allan P. Gold and Mr. Alan C. Ferrara Marcia and John Goldman Marcia and Geoffrey Green Betty Hoener James C. Hormel and Michael P. Nguyen Alan and Cricket Jones Mr. Joel Krauska and Ms. Patricia Fox Paola and Richard Kulp Linda Kurtz* 30 Jennifer Langan Marcia and Jim Levy Jennifer S. Lindsay Drs. Michael and Jane Marmor Christine and Stan Mattison Milton Mosk and Thomas Foutch* The New Ark Fund Terry and Jan Opdendyk LeRoy Ortopan Norman and Janet Pease Ms. Carey Perloff and Mr. Anthony Giles Marjorie Perloff Ms. Saga Perry and Mr. Frederick Perry Jon and Barbara Phillips Lisa and John Pritzker Merrill Randol Sherwin John Riccitiello Rick and Anne Riley Dr. James Robinson and Ms. Kathy Kohrman Matt and Yvonne Rogers Susan Roos Paul and Julie Seipp Rick and Cindy Simons Mr. Laurence L. Spitters Emmett and Marion Stanton Vera and Harold Stein Dr. Martin and Elizabeth Terplan* Patrick S. Thompson John and Sandra Thompson Katherine Welch Minott and Ashley Wessinger Beverly and Loring Wyllie PLAYWRIGHTS ($4,000–$5,999) Anonymous Ray and Jackie Apple Mr. and Mrs. Gerson Bakar Mr. Eugene Barcone Sara and Wm. Anderson Barnes Fund Roger and Helen Bohl Ms. Donna Bohling and Mr. Douglas Kalish Christopher and Debora Booth* Ben and Noel Bouck Benjamin Bratt and Talisa Soto Leslie and Buzz Burlock Madeline and Myrkle Deaton Richard DeNatale and Craig Latker Anne and Gerald Down Emerald Gate Charitable Trust Philip and Judy Erdberg Jacqueline and Christian Erdman* Nancy and Jerry Falk Sue and Ed Fish* Dr. and Mrs. Fred N. Fritsch* Mrs. Susan Fuller Sameer Gandhi and Monica Lopez Marilee K. Gardner Jason Goldman Barbara Grasseschi and Tony Crabb Mark and Renee Greenstein* Mr. and Mrs. Henry Paul Hensley* Bannus & Cecily Hudson Becky and Lorin Kaplan & Family Joseph D. Keegan, Ph.D. Amanda and John Kirkwood Mr. and Mrs. John P. Levin Patrick Machado Melanie and Peter Maier— John Brockway Huntington Foundation Mr. Daniel Murphy Barbara O’Connor Denise Orwin Peter Pastreich and Jamie Whittington Mr. and Mrs. William Pitcher Joseph E. Ratner Jeff and Karen Richardson* Gary and Joyce Rifkind Gary Rubenstein and Nancy Matthews Lori Schryer Thomas Schumacher Dr. F. Stanley Seifried The Somekh Family Foundation Mr. Richard Spaete Pasha and Laney Thornton The Tournesol Project Joy and Ellis Wallenberg, Milton Meyer Foundation Barbara and Chris Westover Mr. and Mrs. Bruce White Dr. and Mrs. Andrew Wiesenthal Helen M. Marcus and David J. Williamson* Mr. and Mrs. Roger Wu The Arthur and Charlotte Zitrin Foundation ACT-SF.ORG DIRECTORS ($2,000–$3,999) Anonymous (2) Martha and Michael Adler Bruce and Betty Alberts Lynn Altshuler and Stanley D. Herzstein Mr. and Mrs. Harold P. Anderson Sharon L. Anderson* Whitney and Phillip Arnautou Jeanne and William Barulich Michele Bear Nancy and Joachim Bechtle David V. Beery and Norman Abramson Donna L. Beres and Terry Dahl Barbara Berkeley and Wendy Storch Jane Bernstein and Robert Ellis Fred and Nancy Bjork David and Rosalind Bloom Larry and Lisbeth Blum John Boland and James Carroll Mr. Mitchell Bolen and Mr. John Christner Carol and Shelby Bonnie Brenda and Roger Borovoy Jamie Bowles Romana D. Bracco Marilyn and George Bray Robert Brunner Tom and Carol Burkhart Mrs. Libi Cape Ms. Sally Carlson Denis Carrade and Jeanne Fadelli Mr. Todd Chaffee The Donald and Carole Chaiken Foundation Steven and Karin Chase Irmgard Chu Mr. Byde Clawson and Dr. Patricia Conolly Susan and Ralph G. Coan Jr. Rebecca Coleman Jean and Mike Couch Mr. and Mrs. Ricky J. Curotto Tiffanie DeBartolo and Scott Schumaker Robert and Judith DeFranco Ingrid M. Deiwiks Reid and Peggy Dennis Mrs. Julie D. Dickson Art and JoAnne Dlott Bonnie and Rick Dlott Robert Eklund Charles and Susan Fadley* Mr. Alexander L. Fetter and Ms. Lynn Bunim 415.749. 2228 Mr. Robert Feyer and Ms. Marsha Cohen* Mr. and Mrs. Patrick F. Flannery* Jacques Fortier Mr. and Mrs. Richard Fowler Elizabeth and Paul Fraley Lynda Fu Ms. Kathleen Gallivan Mr. Jon Garber and Ms. Bonnie Fought William Garland and Michael Mooney* Mr. Michael R. Genesereth Susan and Dennis Gilardi Dr. A. Goldschlager Ms. Ann M. Griffiths Douglas W. and Kaatri Grigg Raymond and Gale L. Grinsell Nadine Guffanti and Ed Medford Naren and Vinita Gupta James Haire and Timothy Cole Mr. and Mrs. Richard Halliday Vera and David Hartford Mr. Greg Hartman* Ms. Kendra Hartnett Mr. Stephen Heiman Mrs. Deirdre Henderson Richard N. Hill and Nancy Lundeen Mr. and Mrs. Jerre Hitz Ms. Marcia Hooper Rob Hulteng Robert Humphrey & Diane Amend Judy and Bob Huret Sarah and Jordan Hymowitz Robert and Riki Intner Harold and Lyn Isbell Franklin Jackson & Maloos Anvarian* Stephanie and Owen Jensen Russell and Mary Johnson Kathy and Joe Jolson Barbara and Ron Kaufman Sy Kaufman* Ed and Peggy Kavounas Ms. Pamela L. Kershner Miss Angèle Khachadour Ms. Nancy L. Kittle Mr. R. Samuel Klatchko* Mr. Brian Kliment Dr. Thane Kreiner and Dr. Steven Lovejoy* Stephanie Hencir Lamey and Patrick Lamey Harriet Lawrie Ms. Pamela D Lee Mr. Richard Lee and Ms. Patricia Taylor Lee Dr. Lois Levine Mundie* Mr. Michael Levy Ms. Helen S. Lewis Sue Yung Li and Dale K. Ikeda Herbert and Claire Lindenberger Ron and Mary Loar Ms. Evelyn Lockton Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Long Ms. Gayla Lorthridge* Stephanie and Jim Marver Ms. Jill Matichak Handelsman John B. McCallister John G. McGehee Kathleen McIlwain Casey and Charlie McKibben* Elisabeth and Daniel McKinnon Ms. Nancy Michel* Mr. and Mrs. Roger Miles J. Sanford Miller and Vinie Zhang Miller Mr. and Mrs. Michael J. Mouat Mr. and Mrs. Merrill E. Newman Jeanne Newman Ms. Mary D. Niemiller Ms. Lisa Nolan Mrs. Margaret O’Drain* Ms. Mary Jo O’Drain Emilie and Douglas Ogden Margo and Roy Ogus Mr. Don O’Neal Meredith Orthwein* Janet and Clyde Ostler Janine Paver and Eric Brown Mark Pigott Ms. M. N. Plant Victoria and Dan Prendergast Kenneth Preston Gordon Radley Sandi and Mark Randall Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Ratinoff Shirley and Robert Raymer Mr. and Mrs. John A. Reitan Albert and Roxanne Richards Fund Victoria and Daniel Rivas Mr. Orrin W. Robinson III* Mrs. Marianne B. Robison Barbara G. Rosenblum Susan Rosin and Brian Bock Ms. Irene Rothschild Ms. Diane Rudden Ms. Dace Rutland Scott and Janis Sachtjen Ms. Monica Salusky and Mr. John Sutherland Betty and Jack Schafer Ms. Nancy M. Schulz Ms. Jean Schulz Andrew and Marva Seidl Russ Selinger Mr. and Mrs. John Shankel Mr. James Shay and Mr. Steven Correll Michelle Shonk Ms. Ruth A. Short Mr. Earl G. Singer Raven Sisco Richard and Jerry Smallwood Ms. Judith O. Smith Mr. and Mrs. Edward H. Snow Lee and Carolyn Snowberg Kristine Soorian and Bryce Ikeda Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Spears Steven and Chris Spencer* Mr. Paul Spiegel Diana L. Starcher Lillis and Max Stern Rick Stern and Nancy Ginsburg Stern Vibeke Strand, MD and Jack Loftis, PhD Richard and Michele Stratton J. Dietrich and Dawna Stroeh Ms. Norah Terrault Susan Terris Dr. Eric Test and Dr. Odelia Braun* Nancy Thompson and Andy Kerr Ian and Olga Thomson Ms. Patricia Tomlinson and Mr. Bennet Weintraub Mr. and Mrs. John R. Upton Jr. Jane and Bernard von Bothmer Arnie and Gail Wagner Mr. and Mrs. James Wagstaffe Mrs. Katherine G. Wallin and Mr. Homer Wallin Ms. Margaret Warton and Mr. Steve Benting Ms. Carol Watts Irv Weissman and Family Ms. Allie Weissman Ms. Beth Weissman Marie and Daniel Welch Diane B. Wilsey Kenneth and Sharon Wilson Mr. David S. Wood and Ms. Kathleen Garrison Mr. and Mrs. Roy B. Woolsey 31 ALAN JONES, CHAIR Friends of A.C.T. make annual contributions of $500–$1,999 in support of A.C.T.’s operations and programs. We are privileged to recognize these members’ generosity during the January 1, 2016, to January 1, 2017, period. Space limitations prevent us from listing all those who have generously supported the Annual Fund. For information about Friends of A.C.T. membership, please contact Stephanie Swide at 415.439.2353 or [email protected]. *Member of A.C.T. Next Stage Crew PATRONS ($1,200–$1,999) Anonymous (3) Kat and Dave Anderson* Ms. Kay Auciello* Mr. David N. Barnard Dorothy and Ervin Behrin Mr. Thomas Benet Lauren Berman Peter Blume Mr. Nicholas Brathwaite Stan and Stephanie Casper Paul and Deborah Cleveland Ms. Donna Crabb and Mr. Gustav Laub Gregory Davis Ira and Jerry Dearing* William Dewey Ms. Kathleen Dumas Mr. Timothy C. Duran Leif and Sharon Erickson Ms. Susan Free Kathleen and Paul Goldman Ms. Margaret J. Grover Mr. David C. Hale Kathy Hart* Mr. John F. Heil Dr. and Mrs. Richard W. Horrigan Edward L. Howes, MD Alex Ingersoll and Martin Tannenbaum Louise Karr Jeffrey and Loretta Kaskey George and Janet King Tori and David Kistler Hal and Leslie Kruth Eileen Landauer and Mark Michael Thomas and Barbara Lasinski Julia Lobel Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Logan Jeff and Susanne Lyons Mr. E. Craig Moody Joseph C. Najpaver and Deana Logan Cindy Nicola* Ms. Susan O’Brien Robert and Marcia Popper Ms. Diane Raile Barbara and Saul Rockman* Peter and Janice Scattini* David Schnur Jason Seifer and Brian Ayer Dr. Gary Stein and Jana Stein Ms. Jacqueline Stewart Ian E. Stockdale and Ruth Leibig* Dr. and Mrs. G. Cook Story Mr. Jay Streets Mrs. Helena Wasp Troy Larry Vales Melissa and Jonathan Weinberg SUSTAINERS ($750–$1,199) Anonymous (4) Susan Adamson and George Westfall Ms. Patricia Wilde Anderson Mr. Paul Anderson Dr. and Mrs. Douglas Anderson Dick Barker 32 Mr. William Barnard Ms. Pamela Barnes Robert H. Beadle* Mr. Daniel R. Bedford Mr. Ari Benbasat Mr. and Mrs. Paul Berg Richard and Katherine Berman* Stuart and Helen Bessler Mr. John Blankenship and Ms. Linda Carter Mr. Noel Blos Jeff and Cecil Bodington Jaime Caban and Rob Mitchell Zoe Catalano Ms. Linda R. Clem Martha Conte Ms. Shirley Cookston Ms. Karen T. Crommie Mr. Copley E. Crosby James Cuthbertson Yogen and Peggy Dalal Niccolo De Masi Dr. Thomas R. Delebo Ms. Roberta Denning Richard and Sheryl Donaldson Ms. Joanne Dunn Marilynne Elverson Ms. Susan English and Michael Kalkstein M. Daniel and Carla Flamm Mrs. Dorothy A. Flanagan Darla and Patrick Flanagan Mr. Gregory Fung Mr. John Garfinkle Frederick and Leslie Gaylord David and Marcia Glassel Matthew G. Gloss Marlys T. Green Prerna Gupta Kelly and Mike Halper Julia Hardin Hansen Mr. Thomas Harkins Mr. Kim Harris and Bennet Marks William Heavlin Mr. and Mrs. R. S. Heinrichs The Brian and Patricia A. Herman Fund at Community Foundation Santa Cruz County Leni and Doug Herst Dr. James and Suzette Hessler Mr. and Mrs. Donald M. Hill James and Helen Hobbs Leslie and George Hume Richard and Cheryl Jacobs Ms. Carolyn Jayne Allan and Rebecca Jergesen Mr. and Mrs. Norman L. Johnson Mrs. Zeeva Kardos Mr. Dennis Kaump Jascha Kaykas-Wolff Ms. Josephine Kennedy Michael Kim Karla Kirkegaard Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Klotter Michael Kossman Ms. Hamila Kownacki Edward and Miriam Landesman Mrs. Judith T. Leahy Mrs. Gary Letson Barry and Ellen Levine Ms. Elise S. Liddle Ms. Carol H. Lokke Mr. and Mrs. William Manheim Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Marks Dennis and Karen May Robert McCleskey Karin and Gregory McClune* Mr. and Mrs. Jason McDonell Mark and Gene McGranahan Karen and John McGuinn Dr. Margaret R. McLean* Mr. and Mrs. Casey McManemin Jeffrey and Elizabeth Minick Thomas and Lydia Moran John and Betsy Munz Dorotea C. Nathan Adam Neeley Fine Art Jewelry SF LLC Nancy and Bill Newmeyer Ms. Nancy F. Noe Alicia Nogales and Greg Little Ms. Joanna Officier and Mr. Ralph Tiegel Mr. Lester Olmstead-Rose* Pamela Orloff Mr. James O’Toole Barbara Paschke and David Volpendesta Mr. David J. Pasta Ms. Danielle Rebischung Maryalice Reinmuller Sheryl and Jim Reuben Mr. Philip Rich Marguerite Romanello Dan Rosenbaum and Suzanne L. Klein Maureen and Paul Roskoph Ms. Mary Ellen Rossi Patti and Rusty Rueff Paul Sack Mrs. H. Harrison Sadler Sonja Schmid Mr. Paul Schmidt Dr. and Mrs. Stephen M. Schoen Mr. James J. Scillian Mr. Jim Sciuto Mr. Robert J. Sehr Mr. Jon Shantz Ms. Patricia Sims Christina Sonas Mr. Herbert Steierman Jeffrey Stern, M.D. Mr. and Mrs. Monroe Strickberger Mr. Jason Surles Roselyne C. Swig Marilyn E. Taghon Joe Tally and Dan Strauss Marvin Tanigawa Maggie Thompson Ms. Mary Topliff Ms. Leslie Tyler Leon Van Steen Mr. and Mrs. Ronald G. VandenBerghe Marsha Veit Mr. Douglass J. Warner Mr. William R. Weir Mr. Richard West Mr. Robert Weston Mr. Keith Wetmore Tim M. Whalen Mr. David S. Winkler Sally Woolsey Marilyn and Irvin Yalom Elysa Yanowitz* Jacqueline Young Mr. and Mrs. Philip Zimbardo CONTRIBUTOR LEVEL NEXT STAGE CREW ($500–$749) Dr. Seth D. Ammerman* David and Michele Benjamin* Mr. Igor R. Blake* Mrs. Katie Budge* Ms. Cecily Cassel* Ms. Buffy Cereske* Craig E. Claussen* Mr. Edward Conger* Lisa Conte* Kristen and Charles Correll* Mr. Gregory Curatolo* Alan Entine* Dr. Marcus Feldman and Mrs. S. Shirley Feldman* Karen and Stuart Gansky* Bill and Nancy Grove* Ms. Marlyne L. Hadley* Mr. Mark Hall* Adrienne Hirt and Jeffrey Rodman* Jeff and Sue Mulvihill* Richard and Donna Perkins* Jillian C. Robinson* Meline and Jirayr Roubinian* Mr. Robert Scheid and Mr. Todd Charles* Jill Stanfield* Kay Sternberger* The Toland-Yeh Family* Mr. and Mrs. Ron Vitt* Ms. Rosemary Welde* Christy Wise and Bob Axelrod* Andrew Ferguson and Kay Wu* Ms. Nicole Zayac* Mark Zielazinski* ACT-SF.ORG JO S. HURLEY, CHAIR A.C.T. gratefully acknowledges the Prospero Society members listed below, who have made an investment in the future of A.C.T. by providing for the theater in their estate plans. **Deceased Providing a Legacy for A.C.T. GIFTS DESIGNATED TO AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER Anonymous (8) Anthony J. Alfidi Judith and David Anderson Kay Auciello Ms. Nancy Axelrod M. L. Baird, in memory of Travis and Marion Baird Therese L. Baker-Degler Ms. Teveia Rose Barnes and Mr. Alan Sankin Eugene Barcone Robert H. Beadle Susan B. Beer David Beery and Norman Abramson J. Michael and Leon Berry-Lawhorn Dr. Barbara L. Bessey and Dr. Kevin J. Gilmartin** Lucia Brandon Mr. Arthur H. Bredenbeck and Mr. Michael Kilpatrick Linda K. Brewer Martin and Geraldine Brownstein Gayle and Steve Brugler Bruce Carlton and Richard McCall** Florence Cepeda and Earl Frick Paula Champagne and David Watson Mr. and Mrs. Steven B. Chase Lesley Ann Clement Lloyd and Janet Cluff Patricia Corrigan Susan and Jack Cortis Ms. Joan Danforth Richard T. Davis-Lowell Sharon Dickson Jerome L. and Thao N. Dodson Drs. Peter and Ludmila Eggleton Linda Jo Fitz Frannie Fleishhacker Kevin and Celeste Ford Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Fowler Alan and Susan Fritz Marilee K. Gardner Michele Garside Dr. Allan P. Gold and Mr. Alan C. Ferrara Arnold and Nina Goldschlager Carol Goodman and Anthony Gane JeNeal Granieri and Alfred F. McDonnell William Gregory James Haire and Timothy Cole Richard and Lois Halliday Terilyn Hanko Mr. Richard H. Harding Kent Harvey Betty Hoener Jo S. Hurley Dr. and Mrs. Stewart Karlinsky Nelda Kilguss Ms. Heather M. Kitchen Mr. Jonathan Kitchen and Ms. Nina Hatvany John and Karen Kopac Reis Catherine Kuss and Danilo Purlia Mr. Patrick Lamey Philip C. Lang Mindy Lechman Marcia Lowell Leonhardt Marcia and Jim Levy Ines R. Lewandowitz Jennifer Lindsay Nancy Livingston and Fred M. Levin Dot Lofstrom and Robin C. Johnson Ms. Paulette Long Dr. Steve Lovejoy and Dr. Thane Kreiner Jim and Anne Magill Melanie and Peter Maier Jasmine Stirling Malaga and Michael William Malaga Mr. Jeffrey Malloy Michael and Sharon Marron Mr. John B. McCallister John McGehee Burt and Deedee McMurtry Dr. Mary S. and F. Eugene Metz J. Sanford Miller and Vinie Zhang Miller Milton Mosk and Tom Foutch Bill** and Pennie Needham Walter A. Nelson-Rees and James Coran Michael Peter Nguyen Dante Noto Sheldeen Osborne Elsa and Neil Pering Marcia and Robert Popper Kellie Yvonne Raines Anne and Bertram Raphael Jacob and Maria Elena Ratinoff Mary L. Renner Ellen Richard Jillian C. Robinson Susan Roos Andrea Rouah David Rovno, MD Paul and Renae Sandberg Harold Segelstad F. Stanley Seifried Ruth Short Dr. Eliot and Mrs. Kathy Shubin Andrew Smith and Brian Savard Cherie Sorokin Alan L. and Ruth Stein Mr. and Mrs. Bert Steinberg Jane and Jay Taber Mr. Marvin Tanigawa Nancy Thompson and Andy Kerr Michael E. Tully Ms. Nadine Walas Marla Meridoyne Walcott Katherine G. Wallin David Weber and Ruth Goldstine Paul D. Weintraub and Raymond J. Szczesny Beth Weissman Tim M. Whalen Mr. Barry Lawson Williams GIFTS RECEIVED BY AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER The Estate of Barbara Beard The Estate of John Bissinger The Estate of Ronald Casassa The Estate of Rosemary Cozzo The Estate of Nancy Croley The Estate of Leonie Darwin The Estate of Mary Jane Detwiler The Estate of Olga Diora The Estate of Mortimer Fleishhacker The Estate of Mary Gamburg The Estate of Phillip E. Goddard The Estate of Mrs. Lester G. Hamilton The Estate of Sue Hamister The Estate of Howard R. Hollinger The Estate of William S. Howe, Jr. The Estate of Thomas H. Maryanski The Estate of Michael L. Mellor The Estate of Bruce Tyson Mitchell The Estate of Gail Oakley The Estate of Dennis Edward Parker The Estate of Rose Penn The Estate of Shepard P. Pollack The Estate of Margaret Purvine The Estate of Gerald B. Rosenstein The Estate of Charles Sassoon The Estate of Olivia Thebus The Estate of Ayn and Brian Thorne The Estate of Sylvia Coe Tolk The Estate of Elizabeth Wallace The Estate of Frances Webb The Estate of William Zoller FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT PROSPERO SOCIETY MEMBERSHIP HELEN RIGBY, DIRECTOR OF LEGACY GIVING 415.439.2469 | [email protected] 415.749. 2228 33 Memorial & Tribute Gifts The following members of the A.C.T. community made gifts in memory and in honor of friends, colleagues, and family members during the January 1, 2016, to January 1, 2017, period. Sandi and Mark Randall in Honor of Frannie Fleischhacker Lucie and Jerry Weissman in Honor of Prisca Geeslin Vicki and Stephen Hoffman in Honor of Skylar Goldberg Robert and Riki Intner in Honor of Ruth Keith Laurie Hernandez in Honor of Alan Littlehales Anne and Ed Jamieson in Honor of Nancy Livingston Helen Hilton Raiser in Honor of Nancy Livingston and Fred Levin Lisa Fung in Honor of Anna Neumann-Loreck Anonymous in Honor of Abby Pañares Katherine E. Akos and Harry L. Jacobs in Honor of Peter Pastreich, Tiffany Redmon, and Nancy Mims Priscilla and Keith Geeslin in Honor of Luz Perez and Amber Jo Manuel Susan Medak and Gregory S. Murphy in Honor of Ellen Richard Michele Bear in Honor of Craig Slaight Lisa Conte in Honor of Craig Slaight Mr. and Mrs. Casey McManemin in Honor of Maria Spears Ms. Libby Tracy in Honor of Maria and Jeff Spears Ms. Eve Niquette in Honor of Kay Yun Ms. Jamie Ney in Memory of Ann Adams Anonymous in Memory of Ruth Asawa Michael Kim in Memory of Youngmee Baik Ms. Norma Bissetta in Memory of Julie A. Bernales Anita L. Motta in Memory of Julie A. Bernales Romana D. Bracco in Memory of John Bracco Mr. David J. Pasta in Memory of Gloria Guth Susan Stevenson in Memory of Meribeth Meacham Gregory Davis in Memory of Orlando, Florida Ms. Carey Perloff and Mr. Anthony Giles in Memory of Liz Perle Richard and Victoria Larson in Memory of Dennis Powers Anonymous in Memory of Eva Ramos Joshua and Diane Brett in Memory of Evelyn Ramos Martin and Geri Brownstein in Memory of Eva Ramos Mr. and Mrs. Richard Fowler in Memory of Eva Ramos Richard Grosboll in Memory of Eva Ramos Ms. Peggy Kivel in Memory of Eva Ramos Cherie Sorokin in Memory of Eva Ramos Daniel Weinstein in Memory of Eva Ramos Ms. Elizabeth Greenberg in Memory of Eva Ramos and Virginia Ingham Corporate Partners Circle The Corporate Partners Circle comprises businesses that support the artistic mission of A.C.T., including A.C.T.’s investment in the next generation of theater artists and audiences, and its vibrant educational and community outreach programs. Corporate Partners Circle members receive extraordinary entertainment and networking opportunities, unique access to renowned actors and artists, premium complimentary tickets, and targeted brand recognition. For information about how to become a Corporate Partner, please contact Bethany Herron at 415.439.2434 or [email protected]. LEAD EDUCATION SPONSOR PRESENTING PARTNERS ($25,000–$49,999) Bank of America Foundation Theatre Forward U.S. Bank/Ascent SEASON SPONSOR PERFORMANCE PARTNERS ($10,000–$24,999) BNY Mellon Wealth Management Bank of the West Deloitte LLP Farella Braun + Martel Perkins Coie LLP Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP STAGE PARTNERS ($5,000–$9,999) OFFICIAL HOTEL SPONSOR 50TH ANNIVERSARY AIRLINE SPONSOR Burr Pilger Mayer, Inc. McGraw Hill Financial Schoenberg Family Law Group Hotel G United Airlines Foundations and Government Agencies The following foundations and government agencies provide vital support for A.C.T. For more information, please contact Bethany Herron at 415.439.2434 or [email protected]. $100,000 AND ABOVE $50,000–$99,999 $25,000–$49,999 $10,000–$24,999 $5,000–$9,999 Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Jewels of Charity, Inc. Department of Children, Youth & Their Families The Edgerton Foundation National Endowment for the Arts The Bernard Osher Foundation Anonymous Walter and Elise Haas Fund The Kimball Foundation Koret Foundation The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Trust MAP Fund Saint Francis Foundation The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation The Kenneth Rainin Foundation Laird Norton Family Foundation San Francisco Neighborhood Arts Collaborative The Sato Foundation The Stanley S. Langendorf Foundation The Valentine Foundation Wallis Foundation The Zellerbach Family Foundation Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund Edna M. Reichmuth Educational Fund of The San Francisco Foundation 34 ACT-SF.ORG Theatre Forward Current Funders List as of January 2017 Theatre Forward advances American theater and its communities by providing funding and other resources to the country’s leading nonprofit theaters. Theatre Forward and its theaters are most grateful to the following funders: THEATRE EXECUTIVES ($50,000+) PACESETTERS ($15,000‑$24,999) DONORS ($10,000‑$14,999) AT&T▴ Bank of America* James S. & Lynne Turley*▴ The Schloss Family Foundation▴ American Express* Bloomberg Cisco Systems, Inc.* The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. EY* Alan & Jennifer Freedman*▴ Frank & Bonnie Orlowski*▴ Paula A. Dominick*▴ Dorsey & Whitney Foundation Epiq Systems* Karen A. & Kevin W. Kennedy Foundation Lisa Orberg▴ BENEFACTORS ($25,000-$49,999) Buford Alexander and Pamela Farr*▴ BNY Mellon Steven & Joy Bunson*▴ Citi DeWitt Stern* Goldman, Sachs & Co. MetLife Morgan Stanley Wells Fargo*▴ Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. National Endowment for the Arts▴ Pfizer, Inc. Southwest Airlines▴ † Theatermania/Gretchen Shugart*▴ George S. Smith, Jr.*▴ UBS Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP* Presidio* Thomas C. Quick* RBC Wealth Management▴ Daniel A. Simkowitz*▴ S&P Global TD Charitable Foundation▴ Isabelle Winkles*▴ SUPPORTERS ($2,500‑$9,999) Mitchell J. Auslander*▴ Sue Ann Collins Disney/ABC Television Group* Dorfman and Kaish Family Foundation, Inc.▴ Kevin & Anne Driscoll John R. Dutt*▴ Bruce R. and Tracey Ewing*▴ Jessica Farr*▴ Mason & Kim Granger*▴ Brian J. Harkins*▴ Gregory S. Hurst*▴ Howard and Janet Kagan▴ Joseph F. Kirk*▴ *Theatre Forward Fund for New American Theatre †Includes in-kind support ▴ Educating through Theatre Support Theatre Forward supporters are former supporters of National Corporate Theatre Fund and Impact Creativity. For a complete list of funders, visit theatreforward.org. Mary Kitchen and Jon Orszag Anthony and Diane Lembke, in honor of Brian J Harkins, board member John R. Mathena*▴ Jonathan Maurer and Gretchen Shugart*▴ Dina Merrill & Ted Hartley* Newmark Holdings* Sills Cummis & Gross P.C.* John Thomopoulos*▴ Evelyn Mack Truitt* Leslie C. & Regina Quick Charitable Trust Dramatists Play Service, Inc.* Gifts in Kind A.C.T. thanks the following donors for their generous contributions of goods and services. 4imprint Adrienne Miller Anthropologie Blackbird Vineyards Chateau St. Jean Chris and Holly Hollenbeck Clift Hotel CyberTools for Libraries diptyque Emergency BBQ Company First Crush Restaurant and Wine Bar Joe Tally and Dan Strauss Just Water Krista Coupar The Marker Hotel Moleskine Piedmont Piano Company Premium Port Wines, Inc. Recchiuti Confections Vera Bradley Corporations Matching Annual Fund Gifts As A.C.T. is both a cultural and an educational institution, many employers will match individual employee contributions to the theater. The following corporate matching gift programs honor their employees’ support of A.C.T., multiplying the impact of those contributions. Acxiom Corporation Adobe Systems Inc. Apple, Inc. Applied Materials AT&T Foundation Bank of America Bank of America Foundation Bank of New York Mellon Community Partnership 415.749. 2228 BlackRock Charles Schwab Chevron Chubb & Son Dell Direct Giving Campaign Dodge & Cox Ericsson, Inc. Federated Department Stores The Gap GE Foundation Google Hewlett-Packard IBM International Foundation JPMorgan Chase Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies Levi Strauss Foundation Lockheed Martin Corporation Macy’s, Inc. Merrill Lynch & Co. Foundation, Inc. Northwestern Mutual Foundation Pacific Gas and Electric Arthur Rock State Farm Companies Foundation The Clorox Company Foundation The James Irvine Foundation The Morrison & Foerster Foundation TPG Capital, L.P. Verizon Visa International John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 35 A.C.T. STAFF CAREY PERLOFF Artistic Director PETER PASTREICH Executive Director MELISSA SMITH Conservatory Director DON-SCOTT COOPER General Manager James Haire Jef Valentine, Inventory Manager Maria Montoya, Head Stitcher Kelly Koehn, Accessories & Crafts Artisan Chanterelle Grover, First Hand Megan LaFleur, Costume Administrator Victoria Mortimer, Alexandra Shier Perry, Ticket Services Mark Jackson, Devised Theater W. D. Keith, On-Camera Acting Philip Charles MacKenzie, Producing Director Emeritus ARTISTIC Andy Donald, Associate Artistic Director Michael Paller, Dramaturg Janet Foster, Director of Casting and Artistic Associate Allie Moss, Artistic Administrator Ken Savage, Assistant Producer Jessica Katz, Artistic Fellow Resident Artists Anthony Fusco, Nick Gabriel, Domenique Lozano, Craig Slaight Associate Artists Marco Barricelli, Olympia Dukakis, Giles Havergal, Bill Irwin, Steven Anthony Jones, Andrew Polk, Tom Stoppard, Gregory Wallace, Timberlake Wertenbaker Playwrights Annie Baker; Mike Bartlett; Jean-Claude Carriére, Peter Brook, and Marie-Hélène Estienne; Randy Johnson; Robert Lepage; Carey Perloff and Paul Walsh; Ursula Rani Sarma; Tom Stoppard Directors Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne; Randy Johnson; Robert Lepage; Domenique Lozano; David Muse; Carey Perloff; Ken Rus Schmoll Choreographers Val Caniparoli Costume Fellows Wig Shop Lindsay Saier, Wig Master Melissa Kallstrom, Wig Supervisor STAGE STAFF The Geary: Miguel Ongpin, Head Carpenter Suzanna Bailey, Head Sound Mark Pugh, Head Properties Daniel Swalec, Head Electrian Colin Wade, Flyman Mary Montijo, Wardrobe Supervisor Diane Cornelius, Assistant Wardrobe Supervisor Joe Nelson, Stage Door Monitor The Strand: Patsy McCormack, Strand Master Technician Sarah Jacquez, Strand Sound Engineer John Abele, Strand Head Carpenter ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE Denys Baker, Administrative Project Manager Coralyn Bond, Executive Assistant and Board Liaison Amy Hand, Associate General Manager Amy Dalba, Company Manager Joseph Reyes, General/Company Composers/Orchestrators Management Fellow Mark Bennett; David Coulter; Karl Lundeberg, Nick Perloff-Giles and Brendan Aanes Finance Music Directors Daniel Feyer Designers John Arnone, Andrew Boyce, Marsha Ginsberg, Ken MacDonald, Daniel Ostling, Scenic Jessie Amoroso, Beaver Bauer, Linda Cho, Alex Jaeger, Jennifer Moeller, Costumes Lap Chi Chu, Russell H. Champa, Robert Hand, Nancy Schertler, Robert Wierzel, Lighting Brendan Aanes, Mark Bennett, Jake Rodriguez, Sound Coaches Sharon Boyce, Matt Jones, Finance Mark C. Peters, Subscriptions Manager David Engelmann, Head Treasurer Gillian Eichenberger, Head Clerk Scott Tignor, Stephanie Arora, Subscriptions Coordinators Andy Alabran, Hillary Bray, Peter Davey, Elizabeth Halperin, Alex Mechanic, Johnny Moreno, Treasurers Front of House Randy Collins, Theater Manager Cara Chrisman, Assistant House Manager Leontyne Mbele-Mbong , Associate House Manager Oliver Sutton, Security Susan Allen, Rodney Anderson, Danica Burt, Margaret Cahill, Jose Camello, Anthony Cantello, Barbara Casey, Kathy Dere, Larry Emms, Doris Flamm, Gabriella Gonzalez, Lee Jewel, Blue Kesler, Ryszard Koprowski, Sharon Lee, Leontyne MbeleMbong, Sam Mesinger, Kathy Napoleone, Genevieve Pabon, Brandie Pilapil, Tuesday Ray, Steven Salzman, Michael Sousa, Melissa Stern, Lorraine Williams, Ushers Shannon Amitan, Kim Anthony, Forrest Choy, Holly Coley, Jake Freeman, Anthony Hernandez, Brooke Jensen, Caleb Lewis, Fiona McGovern, Michael Mittelbuscher, Susan Monson, Pete Pickens, Jeremy Rice, Miki Richmond, Tracey Sylvester, Leonard Thomas, Cevie Toure, Bartenders Strand Cafe Rafael Monge, Cafe Manager LaRina Hazel, Raj Paul Pannu, Baristas EDUCATION & COMMUNITY PROGRAMS Associates Elizabeth Brodersen, Director of Education Information Technology Tyrone Davis, Community Artistic Director Jasmin Hoo, Curriculum & Training Specialist Vincent Amelio, School & Community Thomas Morgan, Director Joone Pajar, Network Administrator Operations Jamie McGraw, Associate Manager, Facilities Operation and Security Jeffrey Warren, Assistant Facilities Manager Santiago Hutchins, Facilities Crew Curtis Carr, Jr., Victor Newman, Jesse Nightchase, Security Jaime Morales, Geary Cleaning Foreman Jamal Alsaidi, Jeaneth Alvarado, Lidia Godinez, Geary Cleaning Crew & Community Programs Programs Coordinator Stephanie Wilborn, Education & Community Programs Fellow Elizabeth Halperin, Student Matinees Joseph Givens, David McKneely, Raven Sisco, Apprentices CONSERVATORY Nick Gabriel, Director of Studio A.C.T. Christopher Herold, Director of Summer Training Congress Nancy Benjamin, Lisa Anne Porter, Voice, Text & Dialect Jeffrey Crockett, Voice & Text Stephen Buescher, Movement Jonathan Rider, Danielle O’Dea, Fights Daniel Feyer, Music Development Jack Sharrar, PhD, Director of Luz Perez, Director of Special Events Helen Rigby, Director of Legacy Giving Bethany Herron, Associate Director of Jerry Lopez, Director of Financial Aid Dan Kolodny, Manager, Conservatory PRODUCTION Development, Individual Giving Rose Oser, Grant Writer Renée Gholikely, Special Events Assistant Sarah Armstrong, Major Gifts and Corporate Associate Peter Macfarlane, Development Associate Stephanie Swide, Individual Giving Associate Julia Ludwig, Special Events Fellow Madelene Tetsch, Development Fellow Audrey Hoo, Production Manager Robert Hand, Associate Production Manager Michelle Symons, Assistant Production Manager Walter Ryon, Conservatory Production Manager Maeve Morgan, Conservatory Design and Production Coordinator Haley Miller, Conservatory Design and Production Coordinator Marlena Schwartz, Production Fellow Stage Management Elisa Guthertz, Head Stage Manager Elisa Guthertz, Deirdre Rose Holland, Megan Q. Sada, Karen Szpaller, Stage Managers Christina Larson, Megan McClintock, Leslie M. Radin, Assistant Stage Managers Hal Day, Production Assistant Danielle Bae, Joelle Hagen, Charlotte Morrill, Stage Management Fellows Prop Shop Ryan L. Parham, Supervisor Abo Greenwald, Assistant Costume Shop Jessie Amoroso, Costume Director Callie Floor, Rentals Manager Keely Weiman, Build Manager/Draper 36 Development, Institutional Partnerships Tiffany Redmon, Associate Director of Marketing & Public Relations Christine Miller, Associate Director of Marketing Brad Amorosino, Senior Graphic Designer Simon Hodgson, Publications Manager Simone Finney, Digital Content Manager Kevin Kopjak/Charles Zukow Associates, Public Relations Counsel Ashley Gennarelli, Marketing Associate Thomas Moore, Visual Designer Sara Morales, Graphic Designer Shannon Stockwell, Publications Associate Emilianne Lewis, Marketing Fellow Karen Loccisano, Graphic Design Fellow Elspeth Sweatman, Publications Fellow Academic Affairs Operations & Professional Development Training Emily Hanna, Conservatory Associate, Young Conservatory & Studio A.C.T. Matt Jones, Bursar/Payroll Administrator Vanessa Flores , Conservatory Associate, Academic Programs Lena Mier, Marcella Toronto, Conservatory Fellows M.F.A. Program Core Faculty Nancy Benjamin, Co-Head of Voice and Dialects, Director Stephen Buescher, Head of Movement, Director Jeffrey Crockett, Head of Voice Domenique Lozano, Acting, Director Michael Paller, Director of Humanities Lisa Anne Porter, Co-Head of Voice and Dialects Jack Sharrar, PhD, Theater History Melissa Smith, Head of Acting, Director M.F.A. Program Adjunct Faculty Mary Carbonara, Dance Milissa Carey, Singing, Director Tyrone Davis, Citizen Artistry Andy Donald, Arts Leadership Julie Douglas, Improv Daniel Feyer, Music Director, Accompanist Janet Foster, Audition, Showcase Anthony Fusco, Acting Nick Gabriel, Acting, Director Giles Havergal, Director Gregory Hoffman, Combat Jasmin Hoo, Citizen Artistry On-Camera Acting Heidi Marshall, On-Camera Acting Seana McKenna, Acting Corrine Nagata, Dance Caymichael Patten, Audition Jeanna Parham, Stage Makeup Carey Perloff, Arts Leadership Kari Prindl, Alexander Technique Stacey Printz, Dance Helen Rigby, Fundraising Megan Q. Sada, Theater Professionalism Ken Savage, Director Elyse Shafarman, Alexander Technique Lisa Townsend, Director, Choreographer Becca Wolff, Director Studio A.C.T. Liz Anderson, Filmmaking Heidi Carlsen, Voice Matt Chapman, Movement Julie Douglas, Mask, Clown, and Movement Lauren English, Acting and Audition Technique Francie Epsen-Devlin, Musical Theater Paul Finocchiaro, Acting Nick Gabriel, Acting W. D. Keith, On-Camera Acting Drew Khalouf, Speech and Diction Jessica Kitchens, Acting Kari Prindl, Alexander Technique Mark Rafael, Acting Patrick Russell, Acting, Movement, and Clown Rebecca Struch, Acting Laura Wayth, Acting YOUNG CONSERVATORY Craig Slaight, Young Conservatory Director Andy Alabran, Acting Cristina Anselmo, Acting Pierce Brandt, Musical Theater Nancy Gold, Physical Character, Acting Dan Griffith , Movement W. D. Keith, Director Deborah Leamy, Musical Theater Domenique Lozano, Director, Acting Christine Mattison, Dance, Choreographer Vivian Sam, Musical Theater, Dance Dan Seda , Musical Theater Trish Tillman, Acting Valerie Weak, Acting Krista Wigle, Musical Theater Conservatory Accompanists Thaddeus Pinkston, Naomi Sanchez, Lynden James Bair Library Staff Joseph Tally, Head Librarian G. David Anderson, Laurie Bernstein, Helen Jean Bowie, Bruce Carlton, Barbara Cohrssen, James Daniel, William Goldstein, Pat Hunter, Connie Ikert, Martha Kessler, Nelda Kilguss, Barbara Kornstein, Analise Leiva, Ines Lewandowitz, Richard Maggi, Patricia O’Connell, Roy Ortopan, Maida Paxton, Connie Pelkey, Christine Peterson, Dana Rees, Peter Schmid, Roger Silver, Jane Taber, Susan Torres, Jean Wilcox, Marie Wood, Library Volunteers A.C.T. thanks the physicians and staff of the Centers for Sports Medicine, Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, for their care of the A.C.T. company: Dr. Victor Prieto, Dr. Hoylond Hong, Dr. Susan Lewis, Don Kemp, P.A., and Chris Corpus, Clinic Supervisor. Accreditation A.C.T. is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), 985 Atlantic Avenue, Suite 100, Alameda, CA 94501, 510.748.9001, an institutional accrediting body recognized by the Council on Postsecondary Accreditation and the U.S. Department of Education. ACT-SF.ORG A.C.T. PROFILES CAREY PERLOFF (Artistic Director) M ary Stuart, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, The Tosca Café, The is celebrating her 25th season as artistic Voysey Inheritance, Scorched, and Underneath the Lintel. director of A.C.T., where she has Perloff is also an award-winning playwright. Her recent overseen a huge growth in the quality play Kinship premiered at the Théâtre de Paris in 2014; and scope of A.C.T.’s work, helped to Higher won the 2011 Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation rebuild the earthquake-damaged Geary Theatre Visions Fund Award; and Luminescence Dating Theater and the new Strand Theater in premiered in New York at The Ensemble Studio Theatre. Central Market, and has forged Perloff’s book, Beautiful Chaos: A Life in the Theater collaborations between A.C.T. and theaters across the United (City Lights Press), was selected as San Francisco States and Canada. Known for innovative productions of Public Library’s One City One Book read for 2016. classics and championing new writing and new forms of Before joining A.C.T., Perloff was artistic director of theater, Perloff has directed classical plays from around the Classic Stage Company in New York, where she directed the world, 10 plays by Tom Stoppard (including the American premiere of Ezra Pound’s Elektra, the American premiere premieres of The Invention of Love and Indian Ink, also at of Pinter’s Mountain Language, and many classic works. Roundabout Theatre Company, and two productions of Named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by Arcadia), and many productions by favorite contemporary the French government, Perloff received a BA Phi Beta writers such as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, José Rivera, Kappa in classics and comparative literature from Stanford and Philip Kan Gotanda. Favorite productions include Hecuba, University and was a Fulbright Fellow at Oxford. PETER PASTREICH (Executive six years as managing director of the Mississippi River Director) joins A.C.T. after a 50-year Festival. In addition, Pastreich has done management career in arts management. He spent 21 consulting for the Berlin Philharmonic, Southbank Centre in years as executive director of the San London, Detroit Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Milwaukee Francisco Symphony, a period that Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Sydney Symphony included the tenures of music directors Orchestra in Australia. He has also served as mediator in Edo De Waart, Herbert Blomstedt, and orchestra and opera union negotiations in Detroit, Louisville, Michael Tilson Thomas, and during which Milwaukee, Phoenix, Sacramento, Seattle, and San Antonio. the orchestra increased its endowment from $12 million to $120 Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1938, Pastreich received million. Pastreich was the chief administrator responsible for a BA in English literature from Yale University in 1959. In the construction of Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, 1999, he was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des and for its acoustical renovation. Lettres by the French government and was named an Before coming to San Francisco, he spent 12 years as executive director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and honorary member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees by Local 16 of the Stagehands Union. MELISSA SMITH (Conservatory the Bay Area. Prior to assuming leadership of the Director, Head of Acting) has served as Conservatory, Smith was the director of the Program in Conservatory director and head of acting Theater and Dance at Princeton University, where she also in the Master of Fine Arts Program at taught introductory, intermediate, and advanced acting. She A.C.T. since 1995. During that time, she has taught acting classes to students of all ages in various has overseen the expansion of the M.F.A. colleges, high schools, and studios around the continental Program from a two- to a three-year United States, at the Mid-Pacific Institute in Hawaii, New York course of study and the further University’s La Pietra campus in Florence, and the Teatro di integration of the M.F.A. Program faculty and student body Pisa in San Miniato, Italy. She is featured in Acting Teachers of with A.C.T.’s artistic wing, while also teaching and directing in America: A Vital Tradition. Also a professional actor, she has the M.F.A. Program, Summer Training Congress, and Studio performed regionally at the Hangar Theatre, A.C.T., the A.C.T. She also successfully launched the San Francisco California Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Semester, a semester-long intensive designed to deepen in New York at Primary Stages and Soho Rep.; and in England students’ well of acting experience, broaden their knowledge at the Barbican Centre in London and Birmingham Repertory of dramatic literature, and sharpen their technical skills—all Theatre. Smith holds a BA from Yale College and an MFA while immersing them in the multifaceted cultural landscape of in acting from Yale School of Drama. 415.749. 2228 37 F.Y.I. ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES A.C.T.’s administrative and conservatory offices are located at 30 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94108, 415.834.3200. On the web: act-sf.org BOX OFFICE INFORMATION A .C.T. BOX OFFICE Visit us at 1127 Market Street at 7th Street, across from the UN Plaza; or at 405 Geary Street at Mason, next to the theater, one block west of Union Square. Walk-up hours are Tuesday–Sunday (10 a.m.–15 minutes after curtain) on performance days, and Monday– Friday (noon–6 p.m.) and Saturday–Sunday (noon–4 p.m.) on nonperformance days. (For Geary Box Office walk-up hours, please visit act-sf.org.) Phone hours are Tuesday– Sunday (10 a.m.–curtain) on performance days, and Monday– Friday (10 a.m.–6 p.m.) and Saturday–Sunday (10 a.m.–4 p.m.) on nonperformance days. Call 415.749.2228 and use American Express, Visa, or MasterCard; or fax your ticket request with credit card information to 415.749.2291. Tickets are also available 24 hours a day on our website at act-sf.org. All sales are final, and there are no refunds. Only current ticket subscribers and those who purchase ticket insurance enjoy ticket exchange privileges. Packages are available by calling 415.749.2250. A.C.T. gift certificates can be purchased in any amount online, by phone or fax, or in person. SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION DISCOUNTS Seniors (65+) save $40 on 8 plays, $35 on 7 plays, $30 on 6 plays, $25 on 5 plays, and $20 on 4 plays. Full-time students, educators, and administrators save up to 50% off season subscriptions with valid ID. Visit act-sf.org/educate for details. SINGLE TICKET DISCOUNTS Joining our eClub is the best—and sometimes only—way to find out about special ticket offers. Visit act-sf.org/eclub for details. Find us on Facebook and Twitter for other great deals. Beginning two hours before curtain, a limited number of discounted tickets are available to seniors (65+), educators, administrators, and full-time students. For matinee performances, all seats are just $20 for seniors (65+). Valid ID required—limit one ticket per ID. Not valid for Premiere Orchestra seating. All rush tickets are subject to availability. GROUP DISCOUNTS Groups of 15 or more save up to 50%! For more information call Gillian Eichenberger at 415.439.2309. AT THE THEATER A.C.T.’s Strand Theater is located at 1127 Market Street. The lobby opens one hour before curtain. Bar service and refreshments are available one hour before curtain. The theater opens 30 minutes before curtain. A .C.T. MERCHANDISE Copies of Words on Plays, A.C.T.’s in-depth performance guide, are on sale in the main lobby, at the box office, and online. REFRESHMENTS Strand Cafe hours are Thursday–Tuesday (8 a.m.–4 p.m.) and Wednesday (7 a.m.–noon) for the general public. Full bar service, sweets, and savory items are available to patrons one hour before performances. You can avoid the long lines at intermission by preordering food and beverages. Bar drinks are now permitted in the theater. CELL PHONES If you carry a pager, beeper, cell phone, or watch with alarm, please make sure that it is set to the “off” position while you are in the theater. Text messaging during the performance is very disruptive and not allowed. PERFUMES The chemicals found in perfumes, colognes, and scented aftershave lotions, even in small amounts, can cause severe physical reactions in some individuals. As a courtesy to fellow patrons, please avoid the use of these products when you attend the theater. EMERGENCY TELEPHONE Leave your seat location with those who may need to reach you and have them call 415.439.2397 in an emergency. LATECOMERS A.C.T. performances begin on time.Latecomers will be seated before the first intermission only if there is an appropriate interval. LISTENING SYSTEMS Headsets designed to provide clear, amplified sound anywhere in the auditorium are available free of charge in the lobby before performances. Please turn off your hearing aid when using an A.C.T. headset, as it will react to the sound system and make a disruptive noise. AFFILIATIONS A.C.T. is a constituent of Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the nonprofit professional theater. A.C.T. is a member of Theatre Bay Area, the Union Square Association, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau. A.C.T. operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States. The Director is a member of the STAGE DIRECTORS AND CHOREOGRAPHERS SOCIETY, a national theatrical labor union. The scenic, costume, lighting, and sound designers in LORT theaters are represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE. The scenic shop, prop shop, and stage crew are represented by Local 16 of the IATSE. A.C.T. is supported in part by a grant from the Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. STRAND THEATER EXITS G PHOTOGRAPHS AND RECORDINGS of A.C.T. performances are strictly forbidden. RESTROOMS are located on the basement level; on the ground floor (two ADA toilets behind the box office); and toward the back of the upper orchestra, on mezzanine 2. M1 Wheelchair Seating is located at the main cross aisle on the orchestra level, at Box A on the orchestra level, and in the mezzanine. A.C.T. is pleased to announce that an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) is now available in the Strand box office. LOST AND FOUND If you’ve misplaced an item while you’re still at the theater, please look for it at our merchandise stand in the lobby. Any items found by ushers or other patrons will be taken there. If you’ve already left the theater, please call 415.439.2471 and we’ll be happy to check our lost and found for you. Please be prepared with the date you attended the performance and your seat location. M2 The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/or visual recordings of this production or distributing recordings on any medium, including the Internet, is strictly prohibited, a violation of the author’s rights and actionable under United States copyright law. For more information, please visit: www.samuelfrench.com/whitepaper 38 ACT-SF.ORG Business, meet Box Office. Encore Media Group connects businesses and brands to the best of arts & culture in the Bay Area and Seattle. We’re proud to have published programs with A.C.T. for 15 years. From finance and fine art museums to jewelers and schools, smart business owners know Encore is the best way to get their brand in the spotlight. To learn what Encore can do for your business, visit encoremediagroup.com. “City National helps keep my financial life in tune.” So much of my life is always shifting; a different city, a different piece of music, a different ensemble. I need people who I can count on to help keep my financial life on course so I can focus on creating and sharing the “adventures” of classical music. City National shares my passion and is instrumental in helping me bring classical music to audiences all over the world. They enjoy being a part of what I do and love. That is the essence of a successful relationship. City National is The way up® for me. Michael Tilson Thomas Conductor, Educator and Composer Hear Michael’s complete story at cnb.com/Tuned2SF Find your way up. SM ©2017 City National Bank Call (866) 618-5242 to learn more. City National Personal Banking CNB MEMBER FDIC
