Inside A.C.T.

posted by Nick Childress, cast member of The Caucasian Chalk Circle Nick Childress is a member of the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2010 and a member of the cast of John Doyle’s production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle . Nick writes about his experience rehearsing Brecht's play for the A.C.T. mainstage. When I found out that I was cast in The Caucasian Chalk Circle , I immediately shot up to cloud nine and spent weeks up there. Then one day a fellow cast member told me, “You’re going to have a lot of fun.” Now I am blessed to be a member of the M.F.A. Program, which I am very proud of. But I am also coming to the end of three years of having every ounce of work I have done be watched and commented on by a whole lotta faculty members, staff, and peers. So, needless to say, “Fun” is not often a word in my daily vocabulary when it comes to the rehearsal process. “What? That cannot be right,” I thought to myself. I know what fun is. I mean, I’m 25. TRUST ME, I k

posted by Mark Jackson  Local director Mark Jackson is creating an ensemble-devised piece with students from the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2010. He writes about his experiences during the workshop that took place in January as part of our First Look program . I’ve just completed a week of work with the third-year students of the Master of Fine Arts Program at A.C.T. I’d worked with them for two days back in December to get to know them and identify a subject for the piece we are to devise together in April. Unsurprisingly for a group of young actors on the verge of graduating from an M.F.A. program, conflicting thoughts about transition, change, and fame were foremost on their minds. This triad will comprise the subject of our piece. Picking up the process again in January, we explored our subject further through a combination of activities. We played games emphasizing rhythm in movement and language and analyzed the dramaturgy of our experiences with the gam