Inside A.C.T.

By Ariana Johnson  75 artists. 6 projects. 11 performances. 1 week. The New Strands Festival is a thrilling time. All our studios are packed with innovative new plays, brilliant artists are mingling, and there is plenty of good music, food, and discussion throughout. It’s a chance for audiences to see the wizard behind the curtain and be a part of the growth of new pieces of theater. This is my first New Strands Festival, but as one of A.C.T.’s 2018–19 Artistic Fellows, I’ve been a part of three new play workshops at A.C.T. For one, I was tasked with constructing a giant timeline across the wall of the studio so the team could test permutations of scenes. For another, I stashed copies of the script (and reading glasses) all around the rehearsal room so a performer could improvise a dance and then pick their dialogue back up no matter where they ended up in the room. That’s the key part of new play development: you support the artists, adapting the process to whatever bes...

By Annie Sears Bay Area rock band the Kilbanes are creating imaginative work that leans into the “experimental” of “experimental theater.” They combine their indie sound with rock-concert lights and projections to create engaging, immersive spectacles focused on communicating timely, moving stories. Weightless is one of their most acclaimed rock operas. The premiere at Z Space last year was such a hit that it’s back by popular demand, this time in A.C.T.’s Strand Theater. You’ll see the Kilbanes performing their own work next week on the Rembe stage, but here are some offstage details you won’t get from the show. Kate Kilbane and Dan Moses. Photo by Emily Sevin. 1. The two members of the Kilbanes—Kate Kilbane and Dan Moses—are married. In 2003, they met at a pizza joint in Brooklyn. “Kate was in line ahead of me,” says Dan. “She was looking overwhelmed at the slice selections, and I, a frequent solicitor of the establishment, offered some unsolicited advice about which slice...

By Annie Sears Thirteen actors. Two theater companies. One ambitious production. A.C.T. and Crowded Fire Theater co-commissioned playwright Susan Soon He Stanton to craft a piece specifically for our M.F.A. class of 2019, and beginning February 21, their collaborative work will be presented in The Rueff at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater. Directed by Crowded Fire’s artistic director Mina Morita, Both Your Houses puts the backstage world of a regional theater center stage. Luis is trying to come out as gay, but what if he loses his family? Nate is producing his own film, but what if it doesn’t succeed? Emma wants to start a romance with Reggie, but what will happen when the run concludes? And the primary conflict: the artistic director has questionable relationships with several actresses. But this is the only theater in their area. If they don’t work here, they don’t work anywhere. What will it cost them to speak up, and is it worth it? Tackling such complex issues has been a ...

By Taylor Steinbeck Last weekend's third-annual New Strands Festival was four full days of exciting new works read aloud for the first time, festivalgoers mingling and moving to the sounds of female DJs, and audiences rising to their feet. The Strand Theater was packed with San Franciscans and theater-lovers ready to be wowed, and the artists behind the new plays rose to the challenge. From emotional coming-out stories such as Thao Nguyen's Bend with Me  and Dipika Guha and Jeremy Cohen's Malicious Animal Magnetism to larger-than-life epics such as Ngozi Anyanwu's Nike, Or We Don't Need Another Hero , this year's festival was one to remember. Here are some of the highlights: Justin Genna and Clinton Roane in rehearsal for Dipika Guha and Jeremy Cohen's Malicious Animal Magnetism .  Photo by Taylor Steinbeck. Festivalgoer @xle responds on Instagram. Photo courtesy @xle on Instagram. Ngozi Anyanwu ( Nike, Or We Don't Need Another Hero p...

By Taylor Steinbeck The Strand Theater is ready to rock. Next week brings the third annual New Strands Festival and with it comes pop music, Afrofuturist titans, and staged readings of fierce new plays. “The 2018 artists are new American voices with global visions and global appetites,” says A.C.T. Associate Artistic Director Andy Donald. “The festival is still going to be about San Francisco, but this year, it’ll be about bringing the world to our city.” Tegan and Sara playing at the 2008 Treasure Island Music Festival. Photo by Tyler Love. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. This year, A.C.T. is partnering with SPACE on Ryder Farm to develop presentations of two new works for the 2018 New Strands Residency. Located on a working farm in Brewster, New York, SPACE is a nonprofit artist residency program that has become “one of the leading curators of the next generation of new work,” says Donald. Representing SPACE is book writer Emily Kaczmarek, who will be bringing the Untitled Tegan...

By Elspeth Sweatman  At last year’s New Strands Festival, six performers walked onto an empty stage in The Rueff Theater. The only sounds were the noises of a funfair, the only prop a tiny mannequin of a child. Suddenly, the child transformed into a gigantic, besuited wooden figure—the symbol of a father. Before it the other actors capered and cringed, by turns entranced or recoiling. Over the course of the performance, the actors shifted fluidly between playing boys and men, exploring the freedom and fear of each role. By the time the cast took their bows, most of the audience was in tears. The cast of Fatherville . A.C.T.'s New Strands Festival 2016. Photo by Stefan Cohen. Fatherville , an elegiac, comic, and poignant ode to fatherhood, returns in a more developed state at this year’s New Strands Festival, May 17–21 at The Strand Theater. “What was organic last year,” says A.C.T. Assistant Producer Ken Savage, “we are now giving more structure.” All the collaborators wh...

By Elspeth Sweatman “Part of what’s so fun is that we don’t know what these artists are going to do,” says A.C.T. Associate Artistic Director Andy Donald about two of the works-in-progress featured in this year’s New Strands Festival. “That’s exciting because it means that they are actually creating the work in the space that will eventually house it.” Both of the musicals included in this year’s festival— Port City and Revival —were commissioned by A.C.T. specifically for The Strand Theater. But these playwrights are not only using the 283-seat mainstage as their template, but the whole of The Strand. “We wanted to create more experiential, immersive works where the audiences are not just passive consumers of art, but active, engaged participants in the physical journey of the piece,” says Assistant Producer Ken Savage. Composer Byron Au Yong. Photo by Joe Freeman. Port City , written by Christopher Chen and The Orphan of Zhao composer Byron Au Yong, is a musical fable th...

By Elspeth Sweatman At this year’s New Strands Festival—a week-long presentation of new theatrical pieces, works in progress, readings, and experimental works by innovative, multi-disciplinary artists—East Coast meets West Coast. A.C.T. is partnering with New York’s Ma-Yi Theater Company to present three new works by Asian American playwrights. Ma-Yi is one of the country’s leading incubators of new work shaping the national discourse about what it means to be Asian American today. Artwork for A.C.T.'s 2017 New Strands Festival. The three Ma-Yi plays that are part of A.C.T.’s inaugural New Strands Residency Program are: The Great Leap by Lauren Yee, The Man from Saigon by Don Nguyen, and Snowflakes, Or Rare White People by Dustin Chinn. Inspired by events in her father’s life, The Great Leap by Lauren Yee centers on an American college basketball team as they travel to Beijing for a “friendship” game in the post-Cultural Revolution 1980s. Cultures clash as both countr...

By Cecilia Padilla  Thank you to the hundreds of people who attended A.C.T.’s first New Strands Festival! Bringing together 65 artists from across the Bay Area and nationwide,  this festival  presented works-in-progress across animation, dance, music, and theater. As  The Strand comes to the end of its inaugural season, it was amazing to see our new space filled with so many different artists and extraordinary new work. Here's a glimpse of just a few festival events that took place in The Strand. Keep an eye on our website to see other exciting events like this one!    Michelle Summers (L) and Lauren Spencer (R) in a reading of How to Catch Creation  by Christina Anderson. Photo by Jay Yamada.  Thom.Green in a reading of How to Catch Creation by   Christina Anderson. Photo by Jay Yamada.  Banda Sin Nombre. Photo by Jay Yamada.  Miwa Matreyek. Myth and Infrastructure.  Photo by ...