Inside A.C.T.

By Simon Hodgson Suzan-Lori Parks reached down to the black case beside her chair and took out her guitar. “It’s about listening in,” she said, gesturing with her free hand. On the 8th floor of A.C.T.’s administrative offices at 30 Grant Avenue, three dozen young actors from the M.F.A. Program leaned in, watching the strings, waiting for the notes. Slowly, the playwright and songwriter of Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) started a steady rhythm, light and even.  Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and A.C.T. Dramaturg Michael Paller with actors from A.C.T.'s M.F.A. Program. Photo by Taylor Steinbeck. “When I was in rehearsal for Father Comes Home ,” she said, fingers still strumming the strings, “I was playing the musician [the role currently played by Bay Area musician Martin Luther McCoy at The Geary]. I was watching Odyssey Dog and thinking, ‘What am I hearing?’” She mimed a dog’s back paw reaching up to scratch its ear, then changed the guitar rhythm to a...

By Elspeth Sweatman “The more you dare to dive into what is deeply personal,” says OBIE Award winner Martin Moran about creating and performing solo work, “the more you just come out the other side. It’s not you at all. It’s just human. And it’s amazing.” Moran—a former student in A.C.T.’s Advanced Training Program (the forerunner of the M.F.A. Program)—is currently performing his two one-man shows The Tricky Part and All the Rage in repertory at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater. On a rainy afternoon, he sat down with current M.F.A. Program actors in The Costume Shop to discuss the thrilling—and sometimes nauseating—process of creating, editing, and performing your own material. “There’s a real loneliness to writing, and there’s a great loneliness to solo work,” says Moran. “But in the form that I’m working with, the direct address, my partner is the audience, and that is incredibly joyous.” M.F.A. Program Actors, Dramaturg Michael Paller, and Martin Moran. Photo by Elspeth Sweatma...

By Emilianne Lewis    Mark Harelik and Annette Bening at A.C.T.  Photo by Elspeth Sweatman. “Transformation! That’s what it’s all about here as a student. We want range, to be anything—young, old, whatever!” –Annette Bening, A.C.T. M.F.A. Program Alumna The morning after their wonderful performance in Dear Liar , an A.C.T. 50th-anniversary event held on Sunday at The Geary, M.F.A. Program alumna Annette Bening and former company member Mark Harelik spoke to seventy students, faculty, and staff about their careers both on stage and on screen. A.C.T. hosts these conversations as a way for Master of Fine Arts Program and San Francisco Semester (SFS) students to learn from those in the “real world”: those actors and production members who have bravely stepped beyond their four classroom walls and succeeded in the competitive and intimidating landscape that is the world of acting. Both Bening and Harelik are products of A.C.T.’s programs. Bening grad...

By Simon Hodgson “Songwriting is a game of what you leave out,” says Benjamin Scheuer. “As Hemingway said, you write the 3 percent of the iceberg, but you’ve got to know the 97 percent that’s underwater.” Today singer-songwriter Scheuer took a break from his award-winning show The Lion (playing at The Strand Theater until May 1) to present a master class in songwriting at A.C.T.’s 30 Grant Avenue offices. Listening to the songs of five young performers—Danielle Frimer, Matt Herrero, Sydney Kistler, Andrew Fridae, and Lauren Hart—he offered technical advice ranging from melody to rhyme, structure to story. Benjamin Scheuer working with Matt Herrero in an A.C.T. master class. Photo by Ken Savage. “Danielle, tell us about this song,” Scheuer said after Frimer (a graduate from the A.C.T. M.F.A. Program) finished her poignant number, “The Guy Who Plays Guitar at Mission BART.” When she confessed that she thought the song was “on the sad side” and that she wanted to “get a...

By Simon Hodgson  Colm  Tóibín. Photo by Larry D. Moore.  In the week that Brooklyn , the movie based on Colm Tóibín’s celebrated novel, was nominated for three Academy Awards, the writer returned to A.C.T. to work on his new play, commissioned by A.C.T. and based on Henry James’s The Aspern Papers . The Irish novelist, critic, poet, and playwright is familiar with the rehearsal rooms high above Grant Avenue. In 2014, his Tony Award–nominated play, Testament , was directed by A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff at The Geary. In a conversation with our M.F.A. Program actors hosted by Perloff, Tóibín talked about aspects of his work of particular interest to acting students: character development, storytelling in film, and the challenges of form and structure as he works to adapt Henry James’s prose into a play. The last topic in particular is an area A.C.T. is deeply involved in, with the recent adaptation of Monstress and the world premiere of A Thousand ...

By Simon Hodgson  Bill Rauch is in his ninth season as the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF). While visiting San Francisco for last Thursday’s triumphant opening of the new musical The Unfortunates at The Strand Theater (it premiered at OSF in 2013), he sat down with A.C.T.’s  M.F.A. Program actors for a Q&A moderated by A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff. (L-R): M.F.A. Program actor Leonard A. Thomas, A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff, and OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch. Photo by Simon Hodgson.  Is classical theater training still relevant? It’s deeply necessary, but it’s becoming more and more rare. At OSF, there’s a tension between casting new work and casting classical plays. Ideally, you want actors who can play contemporary, classical, and musicals too. Real repertory actors are very rare, because it’s a marathon, not a sprint.  How do you create a season? At OSF, I was lucky enough to inherit...