Inside A.C.T.

By Claire L. Wong There’s a reason San Franciscans identify so closely with  The Rocky Horror Show . “It’s a haven for people of all stripes to be their most brilliant, strange, honest, fabulous, and terrifying selves,” says Tony Award–nominated director-choreographer Sam Pinkleton. “It’s been blowing minds and opening hearts in San Francisco and around the world for over 40 years and I am—yes—shivering with antici . . . . pation to assemble a community of Bay Area performers who will take over the Geary in 2020 to collaborate on a musical blowout that could only happen in and for San Francisco.” For A.C.T.’s mainstage production of Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show on the Geary stage this spring, we’re holding an open call for local Bay Area actors and performers. Auditions will be held October 31, 2019 from 10 a.m.–7 p.m. at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Auditionees of any ethnicities, body types, gender identifications, and ability levels are welcome. The al...

By Claire L. Wong Rules are made to be broken—and interrogated, rewritten, and overcome. The 2019–20 season at American Conservatory Theater features stories that examine the established rules of engagement, their violent and tumultuous histories, and the people chafing against these constraints. “Told with decorum, rage, spirit, and a wink,” says A.C.T. Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon, “this season’s offerings continue A.C.T.’s tradition of telling stories that provoke responses and lead to debates, dreams, and even action.” Women are pushing back against the rules of oppression in A.C.T.’s first two productions of the 2019–20 season. Tamilla Woodard ( Men on Boats ) returns to A.C.T. for her Geary Theater debut directing Caryl Churchill’s acclaimed modern classic Top Girls . Audiences may remember returning actors Rosie Hallett, who worked alongside Woodard in Men on Boats (2018), and Michelle Beck, last seen at the Geary in King Charles III (2016). In Margaret Thatcher’s d...

By Mads Leigh-Faire Everyone knows the old adage “rules are meant to be broken” . . . but when? And by whom? Welcome to American Conservatory Theater’s 2019–20 mainstage season, where we’re exploring ideas of “rules of play.” “What dictates how we behave?” “Who makes the rules?” “When are rules meant to be broken?” “Is the playing field ever level?” Curtains up! The season starts off on the Geary stage with a modern classic: Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls . Directed by returning A.C.T. veteran Tamilla Woodard ( Men on Boats ), Top Girls celebrates and challenges powerful women while examining power, gender dynamics, and what we are willing to do for “success.” First at The Strand will be a world premiere (directed by our very own Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon ) of Testmatch by exciting, rising writer Kate Attwell . Fresh as a summer mango, this plays dissects Britain's colonization of India through the lens of a rained-out cricket match, where tensions ar...