Inside A.C.T.

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...

posted by Dion Mucciacito, cast member of Boleros for the Disenchanted A curtain is falling with the cascading shimmer of guitar strings. A young couple embrace, bathed in light and possibility. Their older selves on the opposite side of the stage hold on to this memory of hope. A flicker of light that glimmers from the past like the stars in the sky. Stars that might already be gone, but we wouldn't even know it. Their light still lingers. The curtain has fallen. We have just finished our last preview for José Rivera's Boleros for the Disenchanted and the curtain for our opening will soon rise. The cast and crew have put a lot of work into this piece, and we are still finding new and exciting revelations as the process of deepening continues. As much as this play is about dreams and memories, it is also deeply about hope. How hope can somehow exist in a place where the light of dreams past have been extinguished by life’s brutal circumstances. Upon starting w...