American Conservatory Theater - Act San Francisco

American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) is a large non-profit theater company in San Francisco, California, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions, as well as being an acting school.

History

A.C.T. was founded in 1965 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Playhouse and Carnegie Mellon University by theatre and opera director William Ball. By invitation from San Francisco philanthropists and officials, Ball relocated the company to San Francisco and astonished the theatre world by presenting twenty-seven fully staged productions in rotating repertory, in two different theatres, the Geary and the Marine's Memorial Theatre, during the first 40-week season. San Francisco Chronicle critic Paine Knickerbocker acclaimed Ball's opening performance of Molière's Tartuffe as "a screaming, bellowing unbelievable triumph."

A.C.T.'s original twenty-seven member acting company featured the talents of René Auberjonois, Peter Donat, Richard Dysart, Michael Learned, Ruth Kobart, Paul Shenar, Charles Siebert, Ken Ruta, and Kitty Winn among many others. Ball's mid-1970s productions of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, starring Marc Singer, and Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Peter Donat and Marsha Mason were televised by PBS and are available on video.

In the mid-1980s, Ball, suffering from exhaustion and under accusations of financial mismanagement, was forced to relinquish his post as artistic director. He was succeeded by A.C.T. founding member and stage director Edward Hastings, who revived the company's fortunes until the Geary Theatre was severely damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The company continued performing in a variety of San Francisco venues while laying the groundwork for its restoration.

Since 1992, Carey Perloff has served as A.C.T.'s Artistic Director. A.C.T. is now financially secure and has achieved continued acclaim for its work. In 2007, A.C.T. released a cast album of Perloff's production of the Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill musical Happy End, produced and mixed by LucasArts studios. It includes the full score and is the first English language recording of this musical.

Theater

A.C.T.'s home in San Francisco is the eponymous American Conservatory Theater, previously known as the Columbia Theater and then the Geary Theater until being renamed in September 2006. The American Conservatory Theater was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 27, 1975.

Acting school

A.C.T.'s founder's vision was for it to be both a theater company and acting school. The conservatory currently offers a wide range of classes and is accredited to grant Master of Fine Arts degrees for actors. Its MFA program is extremely competitive, admitting only eight students per year among hundreds who audition. It was ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top five graduate acting training programs in the U.S., along with schools like Juilliard, Yale, and NYU. The current director of the conservatory is Melissa Smith. Among the many notable alumni of the MFA program are Denzel Washington, Annette Bening, Benjamin Bratt, Carlos Bernard, Amy Irving, Wynn Harmon, Elizabeth Banks, Anna Belknap, Dileep Rao, Marsha Mason, Danny Glover, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., Tom O'Brien, Harry Hamlin, Anna Deavere Smith, Omar Metwally, Steven W. Bailey, and Anika Noni Rose. 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. Alumni of these programs include Nicolas Cage, Teri Hatcher, Delroy Lindo, Milo Ventimiglia, Winona Ryder, Camryn Manheim, Marcus Orelias, Darren Criss, and Chris Pine.

Young Conservatory

A.C.T.'s Young Conservatory is an internationally recognized professional 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 the acclaimed Craig Slaight, to whom many young actors credit with igniting a lifetime passion for all things dramatic. The Young Conservatory is geared at performing new works specifically for young actors, and has premiered plays and musicals by prolific authors such as Horton Foote and Paul Zindel. The conservatory members are also offered roles in the mainstage productions, most frequently A Christmas Carol, which is performed every winter.

Sound design

The first person to be given the title sound designer in regional theatre was Dan Dugan at A.C.T. in the late 1960s. The term Sound Design was introduced to the film world when Francis Ford Coppola directed (and for which his father, Carmine Coppola, arranged the music and Charlie Richmond was the sound designer) a production of Private Lives at A.C.T., while the final cut of the film The Godfather was being edited in 1972.

San Francisco Symphony Recordings

According to Pristine Audio, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alfred Hertz, made a series of electrical recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company on the stage of the theater in 1927. Pristine Audio has restored and reissued the 78 rpm recordings on CD.