Rites of Passage: Catch MFA Actors in Their Final Show

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By Claire L. Wong

Would you choose your friends over your country? It’s a question the third-year MFA students in the class of 2020 grapple with in Passage, directed by Victor Malana Maog and written by Obie Award–winning local playwright Christopher Chen. Drawing on E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, Chen explores biases, blurred lines, and bigotry—issues affecting communities right here in the Bay Area and across the globe—and asks if friendships can survive in this imbalanced world.

A.C.T.'s MFA class of 2020. Photo by Kevin Berne.

Passage received a five-star review in Time Out New York, calling it “an extraordinary new play . . . unashamedly political yet deeply humane . . . dares to raise questions that make the audience profoundly uncomfortable, but simultaneously creates a welcoming space to which everyone is invited.”

“It’s a fantastical examination of colonialism and xenophobia,” says Associate Producer Ken Savage, “and it’s in conversation with Testmatch. Passage looks at what our relationship is to race and class and what patriotic lines mean.” Chen is an American playwright on the rise. His other work has been seen recently in the Bay Area with the world-premiere production of You Mean to Do Me Harm (2018) at San Francisco Playhouse, and the premiere of his San Francisco noir The Headlands is onstage now at LCT3 in New York.

A.C.T.'s MFA class of 2020 in Storytellers: A Lyrical Hip Hop Cabaret. Photo by Jay Yamada.

With spring just around the corner, our MFA students in the class of 2020 are looking toward graduation and the professional world. Four of them recently performed in The Substitution preceding Wakey, Wakey, and two more are onstage now in Gloria at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater. Don’t miss this opportunity to see Passage and the culmination of three years of learning, growing, and collaborating.

Passage plays February 20–23 and February 27–29. Click here for tickets!

*Please note: This play contains gunshots, loud noises, occasional strong language, and themes of xenophobia. If you would like additional information about the content of this play, you may reach a member of our audience services staff by calling 415.749.2228 or emailing tickets@act-sf.org.

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