Inside A.C.T.

By A.C.T. Publications Staff It’s 9:30 a.m., a cold December morning, and in one of A.C.T.'s 8th floor studios at 30 Grant, the second-year Master of Fine Arts Program actors are preparing to show off what they’ve learned in this semester’s Physical Theater class. The Commedia dell’arte masks are lined up on the table. The actors check their props. Upbeat music blares from the speakers. And seated in the front row are two dozen M.F.A. Program actors. M.F.A. Program Physical Theater class, 2015–16. Photo by Stefan Cohen. As the second years don the visages of old men, young lovers, and dithering servants, their fellow student actors cheer loudly and eagerly provide whatever the improvisations need: encouragement, audience response, even coffee cups. It is moments like this that show how closely knit the Master of Fine Arts Program actors are. No matter how many rehearsals, fittings, readings, and performances they have, they are always there for each other. This close-kn...

By A.C.T. Publications Staff The winter holidays are traditionally a time to dress up warm. But for Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley of The Skivvies, it’s a time to strip down. In their latest show, The Skivvies: Holiday Roadkill , this award-winning comedy-pop duo literally strip down to their underwear and perform musical mash-ups of all your favorites, like “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” So grab your eggnog and holiday sweaters and join us at The Strand! The Skivvies: Holiday Roadkill will be at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater, 1127 Market Street, on December 22 and 23. Click here to purchase tickets through our website .

By Michael Paller By 2004, A Christmas Carol was 28 years old, and the sets were showing their age. A significant investment would be required to refurbish them, which set Artistic Director Carey Perloff to thinking. Carol had more than served its purpose since 1976. Every year but 1994 and 1995, when the production was put on hiatus until The Geary reopened, many young Bay Area children—and parents—had their first theater experience watching Bill Paterson, Sydney Walker, Raye Birk, or Ken Ruta awake on Christmas morning a changed man. Now, however, Perloff wanted Carol to serve an additional purpose, featuring parts for students in the Young Conservatory, and roles for actors in M.F.A. Program who could add the mainstage experience toward earning their Actors’ Equity union card. A.C.T.'s 2009 production of A Christmas Carol . From the left: Ren é Augesen, Gregory Wallace, James Carpenter, Calum John, and Philip Mills.  Photo by Kevin Berne. Perl...

By Michael Paller In the mid-1970s, regional theaters around the country discovered that audiences wanted a Christmas story at Christmastime, and none more so than Dickens’s A Christmas Carol . Adaptations began appearing, starting with the Guthrie (1974) and the Actors Theater of Louisville (1976). Artistic Director Bill Ball asked Company Director Laird Williamson to look at the handful of existing adaptations and choose one to direct. Williamson found them sentimental and clichéd. They were “sugar-coated Dickens,” he said. “Tiny Tim is not the leading character. Scrooge is the real story.” The cast of A.C.T.'s 1981 production of A Christmas Carol . Williamson was drawn to the tale’s psychological and social realism, to its “comment on poverty and the inequality of the classes.” He suggested that he and Dennis Powers, the company’s literary jack-of-all-trades, do their own version. Ball agreed. Determined not to produce an animated Christmas card, their version would hew ...

By Elspeth Sweatman Ever wondered how A.C.T.’s costume and wardrobe departments maintain over 200 costumes during the course of A Christmas Carol ? We met up with Costume Director Jessie Amoroso for an inside look into the life of a Carol costume. A rack of A Christmas Carol costumes. Photo by Elspeth Sweatman. What is the path of a costume like during the run of the show? Everything is labeled, down to the nth degree: every sock, shoe, glove, and bonnet. Everything is also listed on a dressing list, that shows where every costume should be at any given moment, whether it’s preset, put in a dressing room, taken off onstage, taken off stage right or stage left, or put in a basket to go back to a dressing room or down to be cleaned. It also lists the costumes that are taken off stage right but need to be carried over to stage left so that the actor can put it back on later in the show. The actors who wear the big 1860s hoop skirts change out of them and become a miner or gang ...

By Elspeth Sweatman “The more you dare to dive into what is deeply personal,” says OBIE Award winner Martin Moran about creating and performing solo work, “the more you just come out the other side. It’s not you at all. It’s just human. And it’s amazing.” Moran—a former student in A.C.T.’s Advanced Training Program (the forerunner of the M.F.A. Program)—is currently performing his two one-man shows The Tricky Part and All the Rage in repertory at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater. On a rainy afternoon, he sat down with current M.F.A. Program actors in The Costume Shop to discuss the thrilling—and sometimes nauseating—process of creating, editing, and performing your own material. “There’s a real loneliness to writing, and there’s a great loneliness to solo work,” says Moran. “But in the form that I’m working with, the direct address, my partner is the audience, and that is incredibly joyous.” M.F.A. Program Actors, Dramaturg Michael Paller, and Martin Moran. Photo by Elspeth Sweatma...