Inside A.C.T.

By Claire L. Wong Audiences stepping into the Geary Theater for  Wakey, Wakey  will also experience the never-before-seen play  The Substitution  preceding it. Pulitzer Prize–nominated playwright Will Eno wrote this short play specifically for A.C.T.’s MFA Program students. When thinking about the content of  The Substitution  with Eno, director Anne Kauffman says, “One thing that we were interested in was the woman who appears for a brief moment of time in  Wakey, Wakey . She appears at an important place in the piece, and so it felt important that we meet her in a different context. From there, we developed this idea into the first part of the show.” MFA Program actors in the class of 2020 were in the room with Eno and Kauffman as they rehearsed  The Substitution  for the first time. “It was incredibly fun and helpful to get together with Anne and Kathryn [Smith-McGlynn] and the MFA students,” says Eno. “It’s a really important part ...

By Simon Hodgson “I hope that Bay Area audiences walk away from Wakey, Wakey feeling encouraged,” says two-time Emmy Award winner Tony Hale. Though Hale is best known for his television work in Veep and Arrested Development and recent big screen outing as the voice of Forky in Toy Story 4 , his theater roots run deep. You’ve been working for 20 years in film and television. How did you get started? I was not a sports kid and my parents didn’t know what to do with me. My dad was in the army and he retired in Tallahassee, Florida, where I moved in the seventh grade. By the grace of God, there was this children’s theater nearby, Young Actors Theater, and my parents signed me up. It’s difficult to put into words how supportive and influential that theater was for me growing up. It was a space to be silly and stupid, to be free to discover, and to find what I love to do. I adore going back and talking with students and raising money for the theater. Whether a kid goes into the arts or no...