The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) is a nonprofit theater company in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, United States, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions. It also has an attached
acting school.
History
The American Conservatory Theater was founded in 1965 in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
, by theatre and opera director
William Ball in conjunction with the
Pittsburgh Playhouse
Pittsburgh Playhouse is Point Park University's performing arts center located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It houses three performance spaces and is home to The Rep, Point Park's resident professional theatre company, as well as three student co ...
and
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
. Ball presented twenty-seven fully staged productions in rotating repertory, in two different theaters – the Geary Theater and the
Marines Memorial Theatre
The Marines' Memorial Club in San Francisco, California at 609 Sutter Street (at Mason), is a 501(c)19 nonprofit veterans charity and private social club for United States Marines and other veterans of the United States Armed Forces. The nonprof ...
– during the first 40-week season.
A.C.T.'s original twenty-seven member acting company featured
René Auberjonois
René Murat Auberjonois (; June 1, 1940 – December 8, 2019) was an American actor and director. He was best known for portraying Odo on ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' (1993–1999). He first achieved fame as a stage actor, winning the Tony A ...
,
Peter Donat
Peter Donat (born Pierre Collingwood Donat; January 20, 1928 – September 10, 2018) was a Canadian-American actor.
Early life
Pierre Collingwood Donat was born in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of Marie (née Bardet) and Philip Ernst ...
,
Richard Dysart
Richard Allen Dysart (March 30, 1929 – April 5, 2015) was an American actor. He is best known for his role as Leland McKenzie in the television series '' L.A. Law'' (1986–1994), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award from four consecutive no ...
,
Michael Learned
Michael Learned (born April 9, 1939) is a distinguished American actor, known for her role as Olivia Walton in the long-running CBS drama series ''The Waltons'' (1972–1981). She has won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in ...
,
Ruth Kobart
Ruth Kobart (April 24, 1924 – December 14, 2002) was an American performer, whose six-decade career encompassed opera, Broadway musical theatre, regional theatre, films, and television.
Life and career
Born as Ruth Maxine Kahn in Des Moines ...
,
Paul Shenar
Albert Paul Shenar (February 12, 1936 − October 11, 1989) was an American actor and theater director, known for portraying the Bolivian drug lord Alejandro Sosa, in '' Scarface'' (1983).
A veteran Broadway and Shakespearean actor, he was one ...
,
Charles Siebert
Charles Alan Siebert (March 9, 1938 – May 1, 2022) was an American actor and television director. As an actor, he is probably best known for his role as Dr. Stanley Riverside II on the television series ''Trapper John, M.D.'', a role he portra ...
, Ken Ruta, and
Kitty Winn
Katherine Tupper "Kitty" Winn (born February 21, 1943) is a former American actress. She is best known for her roles as the heroin addict Helen in the romantic drama '' The Panic in Needle Park'' (1971), for which she won the Best Actress award ...
among others. Ball's mid-1970s productions of
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's ''
Taming of the Shrew
''The Taming of the Shrew'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken ...
'', starring
Marc Singer
Marc Singer (born January 29, 1948) is a Canadian-born American actor best known for his roles in the '' Beastmaster'' film series, as Mike Donovan in the original 1980s TV series '' V'', and as Matt Cantrell in ''Dallas''.
Early life
Singer wa ...
, and Rostand's ''
Cyrano de Bergerac
Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist.
A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th cen ...
'', starring
Peter Donat
Peter Donat (born Pierre Collingwood Donat; January 20, 1928 – September 10, 2018) was a Canadian-American actor.
Early life
Pierre Collingwood Donat was born in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of Marie (née Bardet) and Philip Ernst ...
and
Marsha Mason
Marsha Mason (born April 3, 1942) is an American actress and director. She has been nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Actress: for her performances in '' Cinderella Liberty'' (1973), '' The Goodbye Girl'' (1977), '' Chapter Two ...
, were televised by
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
.
In the mid-1980s, Ball, suffering from exhaustion and under accusations of financial mismanagement, was forced to relinquish his post as
artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...
. He was succeeded by A.C.T. founding member and stage director Edward Hastings, who revived the company's fortunes until the Geary Theater was severely damaged by the
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The company continued performing in a number of San Francisco venues.
Carey Perloff
Carey Elizabeth Perloff (born February 9, 1959) is an American theater director, playwright, author, and educator. She was the artistic director of American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco from 1992 to June 2018.
Biography
Per ...
served as A.C.T.'s artistic director from 1992 to 2018. In 2007, A.C.T. released a cast album of Perloff's production of the
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
and
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fru ...
musical
Musical is the adjective of music.
Musical may also refer to:
* Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance
* Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...
''
Happy End'', produced by
LucasArts
Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is an American video game brand licensing, licensor that is part of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as ...
studios. It includes the full score and is the first English language recording of this musical.
Pam MacKinnon
Pam MacKinnon (born January 9, 1968) is an American theatre director. She has directed for the stage Off-Broadway, on Broadway and in regional theatre. She won the Obie Award for Directing and received a Tony Award nomination, Best Director, for ...
was appointed to succeed Perloff as artistic director, effective with the end of the 2017–2018 season.
Theaters
A.C.T.'s primary home in San Francisco is the Geary Theater, located at 415 Geary Street near the corner of Mason Street in the
Theatre District of San Francisco. Built in 1910 and designed by
Walter D. Bliss and
William B. Faville in the
Classical Revival
Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...
and
Late Victorian
Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. ''Victorian'' refers to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), called the Victorian era, during which period the styles known as Victorian we ...
styles, it was previously known as the Columbia Theater. The Geary Theater was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
on May 27, 1975, and was designated an official San Francisco Landmark on July 11, 1976.
["San Francisco Preservation Bulletin No. 9: San Francisco Landmarks".]
/ref>
In 2015, A.C.T. opened the Strand Theater at 1127 Market Street between 7th and 8th Streets, across from the U.N. Plaza in the Civic Center
A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, the ...
neighborhood of San Francisco. The building has a 283-seat theater as well as a 120-seat event and performance space. A.C.T. utilizes the theater to present educational workshops, cabaret performances and specially commissioned new works, as well as productions connected to their M.F.A. and Young Conservatory programs.
Acting school
A.C.T.'s conservatory is accredited to grant Master of Fine Arts degrees for actors. The current director of the conservatory MFA program is Danyon Davis.
In addition to the MFA program, A.C.T. offers training through the Studio A.C.T., the Summer Training Congress, and Young Conservatory programs.
Young Conservatory
A.C.T.'s Young Conservatory is a theater training program for youth through the ages of 19. It was founded by Luanne and Ross Graham in 1971. Successive YC directors include Candace Birk, Sharon Newman, Linda Aldrich, and Susan Stauter. The program has been led since 1988 by Craig Slaight. The Young Conservatory is geared toward performing new works specifically for young actors, and has premiered plays and musicals by playwrights such as Horton Foote
Albert Horton Foote Jr. (March 14, 1916March 4, 2009) was an American playwright and screenwriter. He received Academy Awards for his screenplays for the 1962 film ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', which was adapted from the 1960 novel of the same name ...
and Paul Zindel
Paul Zindel Jr. (May 15, 1936 – March 27, 2003) was an American playwright, young adult novelist, and educator.
Early life
Zindel was born in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York, to Paul Zindel Sr., a policeman, and Betty Zindel, a nurse; h ...
. The conservatory members are also offered roles in the main stage productions, most frequently ''A Christmas Carol'', which is performed every winter.
Sound design
The first person to be given the title sound designer
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
in regional theater was Dan Dugan at A.C.T. in the late 1960s. The term Sound Design
Sound design is the art and practice of creating sound tracks for a variety of needs. It involves specifying, acquiring or creating auditory elements using audio production techniques and tools. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including ...
was introduced to the film world when Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five A ...
directed a production of ''Private Lives
''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetuall ...
'' at A.C.T. which his father, Carmine Coppola, arranged the music and Charlie Richmond was the sound designer
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
while the final cut of the film ''The Godfather
''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, ...
'' was being edited in 1972.
See also
* List of San Francisco Designated Landmarks
This is a list of San Francisco Designated Landmarks. In 1967, the city of San Francisco, California adopted Article 10 of the Planning Code, providing the city with the authority to designate and protect landmarks from inappropriate alterations. ...
* American Musical Theatre of San Jose
The American Musical Theatre of San Jose (AMTSJ), previously known as the San Jose Civic Light Opera (SJCLO), was a major professional nonprofit musical theatre company in San Jose, California. Founded in 1934 as the San Jose Light Opera Associatio ...
References
External links
American Conservatory Theater official website
*
View a 1969 documentary film about A.C.T.
made by KQED (TV)
KQED (channel 9) is a PBS member television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The station is owned by KQED Inc., alongside fellow PBS station KQEH (channel 54) and NPR member KQED- ...
{{authority control
Theatres in San Francisco
Theatre companies in San Francisco
Drama schools in the United States
League of Resident Theatres
Regional theatre in the United States
Schools in San Francisco
Tony Award winners
National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco
San Francisco Designated Landmarks
Theatres on the National Register of Historic Places in California
Performing groups established in 1965
1910 establishments in California
Theatres completed in 1910
Bliss and Faville buildings
Neoclassical architecture in California
Victorian architecture in California