Inside A.C.T.

By Taylor Steinbeck “The meeting of two personalities,” wrote Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in  Modern Man in Search of a Soul , “is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” This is what happens when the seemingly incompatible characters of Georgie Burns and Alex Priest collide in Simon Stephens’s  Heisenberg . To find out what makes these characters tick, we reached out to Dr. Mason Turner, the director of outpatient mental health and addiction medicine at The Permanente Medical Group in Oakland, and the host of A.C.T.’s Theater on the Couch—an interactive discussion that follows one Friday-night performance of each mainstage production. After reading the play, Dr. Turner offered some psychological insights into the behaviors of Georgie, Alex, and human beings in general. James Carpenter as Alex Priest and Sarah Grace Wilson as Georgie Burns in A.C.T.'s 2018 production of Heisenberg . Photo by Kevin Berne. Simon St...

By A.C.T. Publications Staff  Congratulations to M.F.A. Program alumna Kemiyondo Coutinho (Class of 2015), whose first short film, Kyenvu , has just won the Grand Jury Prize at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles and has been selected for the Women's International Film Festival in New York. Coutinho wrote, directed, and stars in Kyenvu , the story of an independent young African woman who is struggling to find her footing in modern Uganda, where a controversial law banning miniskirts was passed in 2014 as part of a directive for “dressing decently." But as she lives through the taunts of others on public transport, she finds love in a bittersweet moment. When asked what inspired her to create this film in a recent interview with We Are Moving Stories , Coutinho said, “I was tired of other people telling our own stories. I was also tired of complaining about it so I decided to do something about it.” Do something she did, traveling to Uganda and putting togethe...

By Elspeth Sweatman Vietgone  composer Shammy Dee began performing at a young age, but it was in junior high school that he discovered his medium: hip-hop and the smooth turntables of the DJ deck. Since releasing his debut album  Transcripted Thoughts  in 2006, Shammy Dee has produced and performed on many other music projects, such as DJing for top brands including Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, and Burberry, as well as for celebrities including Mary J. Blige, Michael Bublé, and the Kardashians. We sat down with Shammy Dee to chat about his process and the inherent energy of hip-hop. This is Part Two. Vietgone  composer Shammy Dee performing. Photo courtesy Shammy Dee. What makes hip-hop a good medium for telling a story about immigrants? That’s where hip-hop came from. When hip-hop culture was birthed back in the day, it was a subculture of primarily Black and Latino people in New York. It wasn’t on a mass stage. It was something akin to punk when it came a...

By Elspeth Sweatman It was while he was studying acting in A.C.T.’s Advanced Training Program (the precursor to the M.F.A. Program) in the early 1990s that Hal Brooks discovered he wanted to be a director. After getting his feet wet creating and directing in the Conservatory’s student cabaret, Brooks returned to New York, where he directed Don DeLillo’s Valparaiso and Will Eno’s  Thom Pain (based on nothing) , among other plays. Soon, he found himself not only directing off Broadway at The Public Theater, Second Stage Theater, and Manhattan Theatre Club, but also at regional theaters across the US. Now, Brooks is back where it all started, directing Simon Stephens’s  Heisenberg  for the Geary stage. We sat down with him to discover his love of Stephens’s work and two-person plays. Director Hal Brooks at the first rehearsal of A.C.T.'s 2018 production of Heisenberg . Photo by Taylor Steinbeck. What drew you to Heisenberg ? I’ve always been interested in the relatio...

By Elspeth Sweatman In February 1927, German physicist Werner Heisenberg felt he was on the verge of discovering something revolutionary. He didn’t have the math yet to back it up, but deep down, he knew he was right. Heisenberg could see a new theory emerging, one that would shake the foundations of Western physics. Physicist Werner Heisenberg. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons. In simple terms, Heisenberg’s theory—the uncertainty principle—states that if you know the momentum of an object (such as an electron circling a nucleus), you will not be able to accurately measure its location. The same is true in reverse: you can know the position of the electron, but not its momentum. This is because an electron acts as both a particle (a defined entity) and a wave (something that is harder to pin down accurately because, like the ripples in a pond, it has no set position), and because the very act of measuring the momentum and position affects the results. Heisenberg’s discovery w...

By Allie Moss and Simon Hodgson On April 29, 1975, Vietnamese residents of Saigon heard Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” on US Armed Forces radio. What they didn’t know was that it was a coded message for the Americans remaining that meant “Evacuate immediately.” As the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) moved southward towards Saigon, the US Army began Operation Frequent Wind, a plan to evacuate from the country American and international civilians as well as Vietnamese deemed at risk from Communist forces. But American planners failed to predict the speed of the NVA thrust southward. As they drew up lists of the people who would be airlifted to safety, they thought they had weeks. By the time Communist shells started landing on Tan Son Nhut Air Base to the north of Saigon, they barely had hours. Evacuees from Vietnam on the USS Midway in 1975. Photo courtesy US Navy. The evacuation of the city was frantic. Huge crowds formed at the US embassy as American helicopters came to rescue US...

By Simon Hodgson Simon Stephens grew up in Stockport, a provincial British town that the playwright once described as a place “on the edge of things.” Today, however, Stephens is a name known worldwide. His 30-plus plays—including  On the Shore of the Wide World  (2006 Olivier Award) and  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time  (2015 Tony Award for Best Play)—have been staged all over the English-speaking world. But while the playwright continues to travel widely for productions of his works, his imagination is still sparked by the red-brick streets where he grew up. In between Stephens’s trips to New York and Melbourne, we talked with him about inspiration, science, and the human condition. Playwright Simon Stephens and his two cats at his London home. Photo by Simon Annand. Courtesy of Simon Stephens. Where did the idea for Heisenberg come from? How did you come up with these two characters? I read a story about a woman in my hometown who came...

By Taylor Steinbeck Heisenberg  director Hal Brooks has received many questions about the title of his play beginning performances next week at The Geary Theater. “People ask me, ‘Oh, is it about that zeppelin disaster? Is it about Breaking Bad ? No, it’s not,” says Brooks with a laugh. “Others ask, ‘Is it about Heisenberg, the scientist?’ To that I say, ‘It’s not about Heisenberg. It’s about a relationship—it’s looking at his ideas through a relationship.’” The cast and creative team of A.C.T.'s production of Heisenberg at the first rehearsal. Photo by Taylor Steinbeck. At the first rehearsal for Heisenberg , Brooks, an alumnus of A.C.T.’s Advanced Training Program, addressed a room full of faces both familiar and new, and admitted, “I am not a physicist.” With this disclaimer, he briefly explained the science behind Heisenberg . Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle asserts that you cannot measure both the velocity and location of a particle—you can on...

By Taylor Steinbeck When theater-makers Jaime Castañeda and Qui Nguyen were both living in New York, they’d seek out each other’s work. Castañeda was the artistic associate at Atlantic Theater Company, while Nguyen was writing for his downtown theater company, Vampire Cowboys. “Qui and I were always plotting to hatch a project together,” says Castañeda. “We have similar tastes and we’re both hip-hop theater nerds.” Their similarities run deeper than music. Like Nguyen, Castañeda is a first-generation American—raised in Texas by parents who emigrated from Mexico. “A lot of Qui’s story relates to my own experiences,” he says. “It really has me thinking about my parents and how their history informs me as a person.” In celebration of Vietgone ’s opening night this week, we talked to Castañeda about his direction for this hilarious and heartbreaking play. Director Jaime Castañeda. Photo by Ahron R. Foster. Vietgone is a funny show set in a not-so-funny time. How do you plan on navi...