Inside A.C.T.

By Elspeth Sweatman The Christmas Carol cast is filled with veterans of the Geary stage, from Scrooge to Tiny Tim. Every December, A.C.T. stalwarts James Carpenter and Anthony Fusco (our Scrooges), as well as original company member Ken Ruta (Jacob Marley), share the stage with several Young Conservatory actors who are performing in the show for the fourth or fifth time. With performances beginning this Friday at The Geary Theater, we reached out to five of our returners—Alejandra Zavala (11 years old), Mattea Fountain (12 years old), Maximilian Wix (12 years old), Pilar Rivas (11 years old), and Seth Weinfield (13 years old)—to ask about their Carol experiences. This is Part One. The Young Conservatory actors of the 2016 production of  A Christmas Carol . How have you changed as a person throughout your three seasons in A Christmas Carol ? Alejandra Zavala: I am more confident and comfortable because now I feel like I know what I am doing. I am a much more focused pers...

By Taylor Steinbeck In  Small Mouth Sounds —now playing at The Strand Theater—six people longing to reconnect with themselves and their surroundings embark on a five-day silent retreat. While there, they practice mindfulness under the guidance of an unseen teacher, who encourages them to embrace stillness.  There are many benefits of taking a moment to breathe and recharge , but you don’t have to leave on a retreat to experience this peaceful state. What if we told you that you can have access to your very own meditation guru right from your smart phone? In anticipation of A.C.T.'s Tech Night next week, we put together a list of our top three favorite meditation apps. Headspace's interface. Art by Chris Markland. Headspace: This user-friendly guided meditation app offers a 10-day beginner’s course that guides its users through the basics of meditation and mindfulness using charming, colorful animations. Small Mouth Sounds actors Orville Mendoza (Teacher), Conno...

By Taylor Steinbeck At 8:55 a.m. this morning, I set out to track down one of the few peaceful spots in the hustle and bustle of San Francisco’s Financial District: WITHIN Meditation. WITHIN’s meditation studio offers 30-minute guided meditation sessions focusing on mindfulness—the practice of being conscious of the present moment. Like the characters in  Small Mouth Sounds , I had some trouble embracing stillness at first (especially since I had never meditated for more than ten minutes before).  WITHIN Meditation. Photo by Taylor Steinbeck. When I arrived at the meditation room, I slipped out of my shoes and plopped down onto one of the cushions. A group of other meditation newbies filed in. Our teacher, Hannah Knapp (also WITHIN’s co-founder), began the session by asking us to close our eyes and listen to our surroundings. Located on Sansome Street, WITHIN’s cozy studio is tucked between busy alleyways, so whenever a bus passed, the thin walls shook. Initially, I ...

By Shannon Stockwell Meditation is having its heyday in the Western world these days. Many people, from sports figures (Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll) to CEOs (Oprah Winfrey), espouse the benefits of taking a few moments out of each day to breathe, be still, and be in the moment. There are several reasons why people turn to meditation. In fact, mindfulness—the practice of being aware of one’s self and surroundings—has so many supposed benefits, it might seem at first glance to be nothing more than a pseudoscientific fad. But researchers around the world have been studying meditation using scientific methods and have made some surprising and convincing discoveries about its effectiveness, particularly the way that it can cause physical changes in the human brain. Monk Barry Kerzin meditating with an electroencephalogram for neuroscience research. Photo by Antoine Lutz. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. In 2003, a group of scientists led by University of Wisconsin–Madison psycho...

By A.C.T. Publications Staff For the seven actors in Bess Wohl’s  Small Mouth Sounds , the line between their characters and themselves is easily blurred. “What’s wonderful about Bess’s play is that the actor and the character are charged with the same challenge,” says Brad Heberlee, who played Ned in the 2016 off-Broadway production. “Each character has ostensibly come to the retreat to listen and be present to the lesson of the Teacher, and at the end of the day, the actors [in the production] are there to achieve the same goal.” Ben Beckley as Ned in A.C.T.'s production of Small Mouth Sounds . Photo by T. Charles Erickson. That sense of being in the moment is critical to mindfulness in acting. This awareness asks performers to be wholly engrossed in what they are doing in that exact moment. Small Mouth Sounds director Rachel Chavkin echoes this idea. She believes that many actors forget how riveting it can be to just “be” onstage. “Trust the silence and be present,” she ...

By Michael Paller William Ball, founder and first artistic director of A.C.T., had a metaphysical side and was drawn to techniques of meditation for both spiritual and practical reasons. At the all-company meeting that opened the 1982 season and school year, he spoke about the light inside each student. That light was guarded by fear, which had to be overcome before the light—the source of their individual talent—could shine. “Fear is an illusion,” he said, “it is non-productive, it is non-meaningful to us and since it is . . . not a help to us we supersede it. In overcoming a fear we have to trust that nobody is going to hurt the sensitiveness of that light. . . . We create standards of self-discipline that will cause us to respect that sensitivity.” William Ball. Photo by William Ganslen.  Part of that self-discipline was Transcendental Meditation (TM), which had been brought to the West by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1959, and popularized by the Beatles in 1968, just a...

By Taylor Steinbeck William Kentridge's multimedia chamber opera, Refuse the Hour is a rush for the eyes and ears. The sounds of African drum beats, vocalists, and giant metronomes play in tandem with dancers, animation, and video, as the man himself muses on theories of time, relativity, and myth through a spoken-word performance. New York Times writer Vivien Schweitzer describes the show as "fascinating and overwhelming." Before experiencing it all for yourself at The Geary Theater this weekend, learn more about the fascinating world of Refuse the Hour  below . This 2016 Bloomberg interview with Kentridge offers insight into the artist's process, biography, and ouevre. In this bite-size lecture, Peter Galison— Refuse the Hour 's dramaturg and renowned Harvard physics professor–discusses Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, which was one of Kentridge's key inspirations. Featuring a score by Philip Miller, Refuse the Hour is the companion...

By Taylor Steinbeck Love. Lust. Murder. Morality. These are just a handful of themes that the seventeenth-century tragedy, The Changeling , takes on over the course of five acts. Written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, this complex classical text was handpicked for the M.F.A. Program’s Class of 2020. “Revenge tragedy is not about dry wit—it’s really visceral” says Conservatory Director Melissa Smith. “This class of actors has the emotional range and the temperaments to tackle this play.” Opening at The Rueff this Thursday, The Changeling is sure to challenge its talented performers to rise to the occasion. Show artwork for the M.F.A. Program's production of The Changeling .  Director Nancy Benjamin, A.C.T.’s head of voice and dialect, is well aware of the intricacy of the language. “Working with classical text and its heightened, poetic, rhetorical language is an enormous challenge for any actor,” says Benjamin. “The dexterity, precision, and ener...