The Actor's Workshop was a theatre company founded in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

in 1952. It was the first professional theatre on the west coast to premiere many of the modern American classics such as

Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), '' Death of a Salesman'' (1 ...

's ''

Death of a Salesman ''Death of a Salesman'' is a 1949 stage play written by the American playwright Arthur Miller. The play premiered on Broadway in February 1949, running for 742 performances. It is a two-act tragedy set in late 1940s Brooklyn told through a ...

'' and ''

The Crucible ''The Crucible'' is a 1953 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1692 to 1693. Miller wrote ...

'', and the world dramas of

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

Jean Genet Jean Genet (; ; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels '' The Th ...

and

Harold Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A List of Nobel laureates in Literature, Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramat ...

. For the 1953–1954 season, the Workshop offered six plays: ''

Lysistrata ''Lysistrata'' ( or ; Attic Greek: , ''Lysistrátē'', ) is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city ...

'', by

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

; ''

Venus Observed ''Venus Observed'' is a play in blank verse by the English dramatist and poet Christopher Fry. The play concerns a Duke who decides to remarry for a third time. He gets his son Edgar to pick the bride. The Duke likes Perpetua but Edgar wants her ...

'', by

Christopher Fry Christopher Fry (18 December 1907 – 30 June 2005) was an English poet and playwright. He is best known for his verse dramas, especially '' The Lady's Not for Burning'', which made him a major force in theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. Biograp ...

; ''

'', by Arthur Miller; a revival of ''Playboy''; ''

The Cherry Orchard ''The Cherry Orchard'' () is the last play by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Written in 1903, it was first published by '' Znaniye'' (Book Two, 1904), and came out as a separate edition later that year in Saint Petersburg, via A.F. Marks Pu ...

'', by

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

; and '' Tonight at 8.30'', by

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of c ...

. On April 15, 1955, the Actor's Workshop signed the first Off-Broadway Equity contract to be awarded outside New York City. When the Actor's Workshop began in 1952, all the talk in America's progressive theatre ranks was of “decentralization," and ANTA’s "forty-theatre plan" was in its formative stage. In 1955, the Actor's Workshop became the first theatre group outside of

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

to sign an "off-Broadway" Equity agreement. A local, independent professional theatre troupe, not just another amateur "Little Theater", was envisioned by an early ensemble of two directors, Herbert Blau and Jules Irving, and a dozen unemployed

Actors Equity The Actors' Equity Association (AEA), commonly called Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing those who work in live theatrical performance. Performers appearing in live stage productions without a book or thro ...

members who adopted the name "Actor's Workshop" as a sign of their interest in polishing performance skills and honing them in group critique. From its start in a loft above a judo academy on

Divisadero Street Divisadero Street (commonly shortened to Divis, pronounced ) is a north–south city street in San Francisco, California. Beginning at the city's northern waterfront, it runs south, passing through the Marina District, Cow Hollow, Pacific Hei ...

, the Workshop expanded over the years to a warehouse on Elgin Street and eventually occupied two simultaneously running houses, the Marines Memorial Theater and the Encore Theater. The guiding artistic vision of the Workshop was a legacy of the Group Theatre of the 1930s, with the troupe's eyes firmly on social responsibility and ensemble principles. Among the company's most lauded productions were the plays of Miller,

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...

, Bertolt Brecht, John Osborne, Harold Pinter—and Shakespeare. Their 1957 production of Beckett's ''

Waiting for Godot ''Waiting for Godot'' ( or ) is a 1953 play by Irish writer and playwright Samuel Beckett, in which the two main characters, Vladimir (Waiting for Godot), Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), engage in a variety of discussions and encounters w ...

'' played before their regular audiences and later to inmates of San Quentin Prison; in 1958, ''Godot'' was chosen by the U.S. State Department to represent American theater at the Brussels World's Fair and, along the way, the company performed at New York's

York Playhouse York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

. In addition to the troupe's focus on contemporary drama, a rare assay at

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 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 natio ...

's ''

King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...

'', brought great acclaim to the company, a ''Lear'' directed by Blau with young Michael O'Sullivan in the title role, a version that amazed audiences in surreal emotionality and went on to become one of the Workshop's longest running shows. For years, the company struggled financially but retained relative artistic autonomy which shifted in the 1959–60 season, when the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

, through its "Program for Playwrights", began to grant aid to selected regional theaters and became, in the process, quite influential. While the Workshop directors maintained focus on serious, contemporary drama, the Ford money introduced "star" names and occasioned mismatched temperaments. The Workshop is considered by many to have been a seminal part of the modern theater movement in America. In ''Regional Theatre: the Revolutionary Stage'', Joseph Zeigler cites the Actor's Workshop as one of the six founding theatres of the Regional Theatre Movement. Blau and Irving, the co-founder directors, were professors at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

. Their work rose to prominence on the American scene to such an extent that in 1965 the two were invited to initiate the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center at the

Vivian Beaumont Theater The Vivian Beaumont Theater is a Broadway theatre, Broadway theater in the Lincoln Center complex at 150 West 65th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Operated by the nonprofit Lincoln Center Theater (LCT ...

, which had just finished construction at New York's

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

. The direction of the Workshop was assumed by Kenneth Kitch and

John Hancock John Hancock ( – October 8, 1793) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father, merchant, statesman, and prominent Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot of the American Revolution. He was the longest-serving Presi ...

, who managed to keep the company going through the summer of 1966. At that time, William Ball's traveling

American Conservatory Theater The American Conservatory Theater (ACT) is a nonprofit theater company in San Francisco, California, United States, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions. It also has an attached acting school. History The American ...

(ACT) was seeking financial support and in residence at Stanford University, and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, wishing to put its weight behind the city's artistic development, visited performances at both the financially ailing Workshop and ACT, then chose to sponsor ACT as San Francisco's resident company.Knickerbocker, “The City is Offered a Repertory Theater,” ''S.F. Chronicle'', July 29, 1966.

References

External links

Actor's Workshop and Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center records, 1947-1978 (bulk 1955-1973)
held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division,

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, is located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, in the Lincoln Center complex on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, New York City. Situated between the Metropolitan O ...

1952 establishments in California Performing groups established in 1952 Theatre companies in San Francisco

References

Further reading

External links