Inside A.C.T.

By Taylor Steinbeck While A.C.T. was founded on three pillars—dynamic productions, actor training, and community engagement—the last of those keystones often merits more celebration. Cheri Miller is a Detroit-born, San Francisco–based performer who acted in A.C.T.’s Education & Community Programs’ 2016 collaborative production, Crack. Rumble. Fly.: The Bayview Studies Project . After working for more than a decade in a series of different industries, Miller fell in love with acting and first got involved with A.C.T. in 2013. A tireless advocate of theater arts and social justice, Miller is a great example of a theater-maker using her talent and passion to create. We sat down with Miller to talk about taking chances, taking classes, and taking up space.  Cheri Miller in A.C.T.'s Every 28 Hours: Black Arts Festival 2018 . Photo by Jay Yamada Why did you decide to get so involved with A.C.T.? When I made my stage debut in 2013 on the A.C.T. Stage Coach for Juneteenth, I re...

By Taylor Steinbeck This past weekend, The Strand Theater opened its doors to the Bay Area, welcoming in community members for a day of free movement workshops, panels, and performances as part of the inaugural Every 28 Hours Black Arts Festival 2018. For Stephanie Wilborn, A.C.T.’s Community Programs Coordinator and the festival’s co-producer, it was an unforgettable day “filled with joy, laughter, tears, and healing.” The cast of Every 28 Hours (2018). Photo by Taylor Steinbeck. For the past two years, A.C.T. has participated with theaters in the surrounding area in a reading of Every 28 Hours , the 72 one-minute plays created in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. This year, the Education & Community Programs team wanted to see the reading evolve into a larger, community-wide event. “We saw this as an opportunity to turn the reading series into a festival where we could celebrate Black arts, Black activism, and Black culture,” says A.C.T. Community Producing Fellow and festival c...

By A.C.T. Publications Staff Happy Black History Month! Says A.C.T. Community Programs Coordinator Stephanie Wilborn, February “is a time to honor, pay respects to, and take pride in our history that made us and continues to make us the beautiful, strong and resilient community we are today.” In celebration, Wilborn and A.C.T.’s Education & Community Programs team are kicking off the first annual   Every 28 Hours Black Arts Festival showcasing local black art, culture, and activism tomorrow, February 3, from 3 to 10 pm at The Strand Theater. Artwork for the Every 28 Hours Black Arts Festival. By Kim Rhee. The theme of this year’s festival is A Healing Experience , which will focus on resilience and joy in the face of the struggle against police brutality and racial oppression. In keeping with this theme, the festival will feature free events that aim to be uplifting and empowering, including a movement workshop that will explore hip-hop as an act of social jus...

By Elspeth Sweatman For A.C.T.’s Community Artistic Director Tyrone Davis, theater is an art form that can bring people together and start a conversation. Davis has been instrumental in bringing together theaters from around the Bay Area—A.C.T., Berkeley Repertory Theatre, FaultLine Theater, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Crowded Fire Theatre, and Campo Santo—for an arts festival and production of Every 28 Hours , 75 one-minute plays inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. Every 28 Hours Artwork. By Sara Morales. Co-created by Dominic D’Andrea (One-Minute Play Festival) and Claudia Alick (Oregon Shakespeare Festival) in 2015, Every 28 Hours takes its name from a study that revealed how frequently—every 28 hours—a black person is killed by police or law enforcement in the United States. For Davis, the plays are a vehicle for an important conversation that should happen across the Bay Area. That is why A.C.T. and Berkeley Repertory Theatre are hosting an Every 28 Hou...