Inside A.C.T.

posted by Deborah Munro, A.C.T. artistic administration intern The A.C.T. intern podcast has returned, and in this episode we explore the process of creating new works, from germination to full-fledged realization. Each season, A.C.T. hosts the development of dozens of new works, from table readings of works-in-progress to mature productions that appear on our mainstage. Some projects, like War Music and next season’s The Tosca Project , involve seasoned artists who shepherd works from the studio to the mainstage—a process that can take years of hard work. Most of these projects, however, find a home in our conservatory, where they serve as an educational tool, challenging students to work with new forms and ideas, affording them the opportunity to originate roles, and even empowering them to devise their own pieces. Because new work is by nature experimental and innovative, it really can “change the world,” as one student says—but how does the process work? How do people colla...

posted by Ryan Parham, A.C.T. Prop Master One of the great things about working in A.C.T.’s prop shop (apart from the killer BBQs and vicious ping-pong smack-downs at the Florida Street shop) is the opportunity to create fabulously strange and wonderful props. You’d be amazed at some of the notes and requests that are generated through the rehearsal and design process. Oftentimes these props require extensive research and development, and sometimes multiple prototypes need to be built before the final product is successful. Granted, once all this work is done and the finished prop is onstage, chances are we will never build that prop ever again. It’s not a question of ability or desire—rather, it’s more a question of necessity. For instance, how many shows have you seen that call for a three-and-a-half-foot-long enema gun that shoots out disgusting green slime? (Answer: The Imaginary Invalid .) Or, how often do you need a large sheet of melted glass bottles that you can hang in a tre...

posted by David A. Moss, War Music cast member I’ll tell you right off that I will be mixing metaphors shamelessly. I am a cast member of War Music and it’s like having played college football, then entering the NFL and realizing, “Damn! These players are fast!” I’ve always wanted to be in a cast where the level of talent is so high that my lungs burn from trying to keep up—that’s the case now. These players are fast! It’s one thing to play college football, where your plays are fairly simple, but it’s another thing when you’re in the pros and you’re handed a biblically sized playbook written by the wizard of offense, Bill Walsh, only in this case the wizard is Christopher Logue. This isn’t a play in the traditional sense. It’s an epic poem that goes in and out of moments of huge spectacle and quiet moments of intimacy, without the through line and arc of a traditional play. It’s Coltrane’s A Love Supreme . The language is exquisite but it can be very daunting. Fortunately for ...

This week the mood around A.C.T. is rife with anticipation. After four years of development, including two intensive movement workshops, two public readings, hundreds of hours of meetings and discussions and late-night brainstorming sessions, four weeks of rehearsal, and five preview performances, our world-premiere production of War Music , Lillian Groag’s brand-new adaptation of Christopher Logue’s visceral account of Homer’s Iliad , is set to open, finally and officially, on Wednesday night. As a preview of this eagerly awaited event—which features a cast of 13 actors seamlessly weaving in and out of 42 roles, original choreography and music, a disco ball, smoke, and bubbles—we’ve compiled a multimedia playground of all things War Music . Come visit ancient Greece, reimagined for the future.

posted by Megan Cohen, A.C.T. Dramaturgy Intern The text of War Music , the adaptation of Homer’s Iliad that is currently in rehearsal at A.C.T., is like a minefield, except that instead of deadly explosions of shrapnel that blow your legs off, you get awesome explosions of poetry that blow your mind. You don’t need to trip these pyrotechnics to love the writing in War Music , or to love the story, because author Christopher Logue is just that good, but when you find one, it’s like a little bonus. A sudden jalapeño in your Homeric burrito. You can stroll blissfully through a sentence, and then suddenly stumble upon a completely innocent-looking word like “slag,” or a simple phrase about a “mammoth hog,” only to discover when you look it up that it does not mean what you think it means, it means about a hundred different things. All of which make sense in the context, and all of which add weight, and add color, and add density, and add resonance, and add energy, and add poetry, and...