Inside A.C.T.

By Claire L. Wong As you walk into the Geary Theater to experience the holiday magic of  A Christmas Carol , you may marvel at the sparkling decorations throughout the theater. How did all those wreaths get  up  there? It’s an A.C.T. tradition that each class of fellows participate in decorating the Geary, and this year was jubilant as ever. With holiday cheer, boxes of glittering decorations, and a little elbow grease, the 2019–20 Fellows Cohort had the perfect recipe for trimming the tree in Fred’s Lounge and wrapping garlands around the stairwell railings. Some of the 2019–20 Fellows in the Geary Theater. Photo by Amy Dalba. With fellows working in such varied departments throughout the company, gathering together to decorate, drink hot cider, and catch up is a welcomed winter event. Outside of decorating and their individual duties, the 2019–20 Fellows Cohort has also been hard at work preparing for the upcoming production of Collective Rage: A Play in Fi...

By Annie Sears Who are we? What do we believe in? And how will we stand up for those beliefs? These are big questions best explored through a big medium—a medium like theater. Our 2018–19 Fellows' cohort believes that theater is powerful because it’s not passive. Theater engages the full person: physical, emotional, intellectual, and relational. Theater is entertainment, and it's also immersive education, which is why we partnered with Bay Area nonprofit 826 Valencia to explore these big questions through theater. A student from 826 Valencia performs his written work at the 826 Valencia Tenderloin Center. Photo by Bill Poole. 826 Valencia is dedicated to supporting under-resourced students with their creative and expository writing skills through individualized attention. They kindly invited us to lead two workshops on writing and self-advocacy for 24 of their sixth-grade students, working on becoming actors and activists. Students first identified their core value...

By Taylor Steinbeck For over six months, 13 young theater artists from various departments of A.C.T.’s Fellowship Program have come together to produce not one, but two plays in a project that will culminate in performances this week. Running April 19–22 at A.C.T.’s Costume Shop, the production features the work of Obie Award–winning playwrights Caryl Churchill and José Rivera with Far Away and Brainpeople , respectively. Both these plays tackle war, fear, and oppression through a dystopian lens, speaking volumes about the world we live in today. In celebration of this project marking the fifth consecutive year of the Fellowship Project, we spoke to some of this year's fellows about their experiences. The 2017–18 A.C.T. Fellows involved in The A.C.T. Fellowship Project 2018. Photo by Allie Moss. Nora Zahn (Director of Far Away ): Being a part of this project from beginning to end has taught me a ton, especially when it comes to all the tiny details that go into making a...