Inside A.C.T.

By Simon Hodgson “They call year two the pressure-cooker year,” says Master of Fine Arts Program actor Allen Darby. “When you move from being a first-year MFA student to the second year, the gloves are off.” Dressed in loose-fitting clothes and with hair tied up with an elastic band, the second-year actor has just come from a dance class. With only 60 minutes to talk and eat lunch before class starts up again, the life of an MFA student is a hectic one. “The first year was more exploratory,” says Darby. “Now we’re honing what we’ve learned. Our work is under a microscope.” Darby is the first recipient of A.C.T.’s Prospero Society Scholar Award, one of several awards given to MFA actors. “It means a lot because it was given for artistic talent and work ethic. It was a nice way to start the year.” The cast of A.C.T.’s MFA Program production of Sense and Sensibility (2019). Photo by Alessandra Mello. This new award is supported financially by the members of A.C.T.’s Prosper...

By A.C.T. Publications Staff A.C.T. Prospero Society Member Anthony Alfidi in uniform. Photo courtesy Anthony Alfidi. A call to action, to most magazine readers and television watchers, is a familiar sales technique—inspiring people to take the next step toward supporting a cause or campaign. But for 45-year-old US Army Reserve officer Anthony Alfidi, the call to action was literal. It came in early 2009, when Alfidi was called up by the US Army for action in Iraq. Before being mobilized for nine months in the Middle East in a military logistics unit, the army officer put his affairs in order. The process prompted him to consider the organizations he valued most, including A.C.T. Alfidi wrote A.C.T. into his will, becoming a member of the Prospero Society—a special group of theater-lovers whose members have committed to support A.C.T. either through a bequest or a living trust. “I’d like my estate to benefit as many people as possible,” he says. For arts lover Alfidi, addi...