Inside A.C.T.

Name: Adam O'Byrne Role: Valentine Coverly Adam O'Byrne Arcadia  runs through June 16. Learn more about the production and order tickets. What are your preshow/postshow rituals? I like to have a cup of Lady Grey tea before the show and a chat with my dressing room roommate, Nick Pelczar [who plays Ezra Chater], after the show . . . occasionally we toast our work with an adult refreshment. What is your favorite thing about San Francisco? Walking to work. I live in L.A., so just being able to walk this city is wonderful. If you could live during a different cultural period, what period would it be and why? I'd like to visit a lot of different periods: Elizabethan England and Ancient Greece, to name a couple. But I like living in the here and now! What was your favorite discovery during the rehearsal process for Arcadia ? I was happy to discover the nuances of the Val/Hannah relationship. How they communicate, the depth of the feelings between them,...

Name: Rebekah Brockman Role: Thomasina Coverly Rebekah Brockman Arcadia  runs through June 16. Learn more about the production and order tickets. What are your preshow/postshow rituals? Preshow: I never step foot onstage without a splash of my mum's perfume (it reminds me of home), but this show I am wearing a perfume Allegra Edwards [who plays Chloë Coverly] gave me since it is our last show together.
Postshow: A nice cold drink . . . lately it has been a Black & Tan. What is your favorite thing about San Francisco? When I am able to go home and watch the sun set and hear the fog horns from the ships coming in. If you could live during a different cultural period, what period would it be and why? I think I would choose sometime in the distant future. I am curious to see what is built upon the foundation we are creating today. What was your favorite discovery during the rehearsal process for Arcadia ? Honestly, my favorite discoveries come from being with...

Name: Gretchen Egolf Role:  Hannah Jarvis Gretchen Egolf Arcadia runs through June 16. Learn more about the production and order tickets. What are your preshow/postshow rituals?  I warm up, have a cup of tea, and brush my teeth. And when possible, I really like to stand where I can hear the audience and listen to them a bit before the show. Or even peep out and look at them when possible! It helps me identify more specifically who I'm doing this for and who will be sharing in this with me. What is your favorite thing about San Francisco?  I don't know yet! Now that the show has opened I'll actually get to see more of it. So far my favorite thing is this theater.   If you could live during a different cultural period, what period would it be and why? In the Western world, I think the turn of the (last) century was a fascinating time. In psychology, society, art . . . huge changes.   What was your favorite discovery  during the rehearsal...

Posted by Selena Chau, Web Development Fellow Joseph Givens graduates from Downtown High School at the end of May. Since the fall of 2011, as part of its ACTsmart arts education programs, A.C.T. has hosted an intensive  Downtown Continuation High School  (DHS), a project-based learning school that serves San Francisco youth who have not experienced success in conventional public schools. Participants in DHS’s  Acting for Critical Thought  project attend weekly acting classes in A.C.T.’s studios, are encouraged to attend all A.C.T. mainstage and conservatory productions, and write their own original monologues and short plays, which they perform in exhibitions for their school and families in A.C.T.’s Hastings Studio Theater each December and May. (This spring’s exhibition—entitled  Borderline Freedom —will take place on Thursday, May 23.) The Mission-based  826 Valencia  literacy initiative provides tutors to guide students in their writing an...

Posted by Adrian Gebhart, A.C.T. Education Department Volunteer Glenn Stott, Elyse Price, and Lisa Kitchens wait on the set of #Cloud9 while lights are focused on them at tech rehearsal. Don’t miss A.C.T.’s M.F.A. Program production of Cloud 9! (Limited run, May 15–18, in Hastings Studio Theater) Since joining the company in 2009, A.C.T. Associate Artistic Director Mark Rucker has directed productions of Maple and Vine , Higher , Once in a Lifetime , and Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet . He has also tackled several Master of Fine Arts Program productions, including last season’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and this past winter’s raucous The Wild Party in The Costume Shop. He has also worked with such Bay Area companies as the Magic, Cal Shakes, Berkeley Rep, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, and SF Playhouse. He is an associate artist at South Coast Rep, where he has directed more than 20 productions, and other regional credits include work at Yale Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Arena Stage, ...

Posted by Dan Rubin, Publications Manager Advancing in skirmish order against the enemy Black Watch performs at the Armory Community Center through June 16. “Dan: My favorite sobriquet for the Black Watch is ‘Ladies from Hell;’ so named by the Germans in WWI, when they would come charging out of their trenches, bagpipes blaring. Assume it’s true . . . ,” A.C.T. Library Cataloger Roy Ortopan wrote me in a note after reading Words on Plays . In my research, I had not come across that name applied to the Black Watch, but, sure enough, in his autobiographical account of the Great War entitled “Ladies from Hell” R. Doublas Pinkerton (who fought with the London Scottish Regiment) writes a beautifully haunting passage about the tragic advance of the Black Watch—or “‘Ladies from Hell,’ as the Germans call the Scottishers.”—in May 1915.