Inside A.C.T.

Mairin Lee, A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2010. Interested in applying to the M.F.A. Program ? Applications are due by January 11, 2013. On November 14, Facebook friends of A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2010 graduate Mairin Lee read the young actor's excited post: "I am making my Broadway debut today as Mrs. Montgomery in The Heiress ! I'll be working with the wonderful David Strathairn, Jessica Chastain, and Dee Nelson!" Lee is an understudy for Tony Award–nominated director Moisés Kaufman's production of The Heiress , which opened on November 1 at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre. She went on for the matinee and evening shows on November 14 and again on November 15, sparring with A.C.T. favorite David Strathairn ( Scorched , The Tempest ) in what she calls a "Victorian verbal boxing match: Dr. Sloper v. Mrs. Montgomery." While at A.C.T., Lee made her mainstage debut in A Christmas Carol and also performed the ro...

posted by Dan Rubin, A.C.T. Publications & Literary Associate Although the halls of A.C.T.’s conservatory and administrative offices are filled with the constant stream of actors taking classes during the summer, there is a definite (though indefinable) change in atmosphere when our Master of Fine Arts Program students return for the fall semester. Maybe the renewed energy in the building is from the return of our new third-years. They’ve become our friends and colleagues—though they still feel a bit like our children (in the most adoring sense of the word!)—as they have grown as artists over the last two yea rs. But many of them have been in and out of 30 Grant over the summer (some teaching and working; others just visiting), and they have all actually been “back” for a couple of weeks now, rehearsing their cabaret, Sweet Charity , which opened at Zeum on Friday, September 11. So maybe it is from the return of our new second-years, of whom we have seen less over the summer ...

posted by Mairin Lee, A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2010 Each summer, several students from the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program take on the task of teaching and mentoring their younger colleagues in the Young Conservatory , solidifying what they’ve learned in the graduate program by passing it on to the next g enerat ion of theater artists. Mairin Lee, who will receive her M.F.A. degree from A.C.T. next May, describes the challenges and joys of stepping into the instructor’s role. There’s nothing like hanging out with a bunch of third-graders to remind me of the following exchange from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest : LADY BRACKNELL: . . . I have always been of the opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know? JACK: (after some hesitation) I know nothing, Lady Bracknell. No bachelor am I, yet teaching physical characterization and improvisation to some of the world’s most impressive j...