ACT goes virtual until May shows
American Conservatory Theater has playwrights Christopher Chen and Dominique Morisseau, plus the show “Freestyle Love Supreme” on the books, but it is delaying inperson programs until at least May and offering a slate of virtual events in the meantime, the company said.
The postponement reflects continued uncertainty about when it will be safe for theater artists and audiences to gather again. California Shakespeare Theater has also delayed shows till at least May. TheatreWorks still has an October opening on the books, while Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s plan is to open just after the new year.
ACT’s news was announced Wednesday, July 29, during the same week that San Francisco set a record for COVID19 hospitalizations.
The theater is operating on a budget of $14.9 million, compared with last fiscal year’s $27.5 million, said spokesman Kevin Kopjak. Overall employment, including contractors, is down from approximately 735 to 168, and fulltime jobs went from 111 to 60. The leadership team all took salary reductions.
Amid so much loss, the company plans to give theaterstarved audiences much to look forward to.
Fall’s virtual lineup commences with an encore run of Madhuri Shekar’s “In Love and Warcraft” (performed live Sept. 412; ondemand Sept. 1825), which Peter J. Kuo directed for the theater’s master of fine arts program in early summer.
As the year progresses, students from the MFA program will also perform in three contemporary American plays and a bilingual adaptation of a Spanish classic; directors include Shannon R. Davis, Dawn Monique Williams, Jessica Holt and Christine Adaire.
Up next, Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon plans to host a new conversation series, “Virtually Speaking,” with the art form’s titans, beginning with ACT alumna Annette Bening (Nov. 20).
The holidays bring a shelterinplace twist on an ACT tradition, with “A Christmas Carol: On Air” (Dec. 426), a radio play version of Carey Perloff and Paul Walsh’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella.
In the new year, the company embarks on “ACT Out Loud,” a reading series of classic plays. Awoye Timpo directs Alice Childress’ “Trouble in Mind” (live Jan. 29; ondemand Feb. 1226); Colman Domingo directs George Bernard Shaw’s “Arms and the Man” (live Feb. 19; ondemand March 519); and Dawn Monique Williams directs Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker” (live March 26; ondemand April 923).
Spring continues with the film version of the Bushwick Starr production of Heather Christian’s “Animal Wisdom,” with dates to be announced.
While inperson shows are being postponed, ACT has much for theaterstarved audiences to look forward to.
Blending ritual and concert, the piece centers on ghosts — the ones Christian’s family talked to; Christian’s family themselves — and takes the form of a seance.
“The times demand we keep experimenting with form,” said MacKinnon in a statement, “so alongside Washington, D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre and Brooklyn’s Bushwick Starr, we are making an original hybrid of stage play, live performance, concert recording and intimate film.”
Inperson programming is expected to reopen with the main stage debut of playwright Christopher Chen, a San Francisco native. “The Headlands” (May 27June 20), both noir and San Francisco valentine, follows a Chinese American who tries to crack the unsolved mystery of his father’s death. MacKinnon directs.
Up next will be “Freestyle Love Supreme” ( July 29Aug. 22), the hiphop improv show created by LinManuel Miranda, Thomas Kail and Anthony Veneziale, followed by the preBroadway tryout of
“Soul Train” (Sept. 24Oct. 31), a musical about the legendary TV show that for 35 years celebrated Black rhythms, moves, music and style. Dominique Morisseau of “Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of the Temptations” — another Broadway musical that had its world premiere locally, at Berkeley Rep — writes the book, with Camille A. Brown as choreographer, Kamilah Forbes as director and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson as executive producer.
The inperson season is scheduled to continue with William Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Feb. 10March 6, 2022), directed by MacKinnon, It will conclude with the National Theatre and Neal Street Productions’ “The Lehman Trilogy” (April 20May 22), which had originally been slated for fall 2020.
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