How a 50-year-old company stays young
ACT gala celebrates its training mission and its new theater
As guests made their way into the Strand Theater for the American Conservatory Theater 50th anniversary gala, many commented on how the company’s 2-year-old Market Street location had changed the Civic Center neighborhood. The night’s stars were not immune to admiring the transformation inside the once deteriorating 1917 building either.
“This space was an abandoned movie theater that had pigeons roosting in it,” Tony Award-winning actor (and native San Franciscan) BD Wong said. “It’s exciting to see change and reuse of a space, but what’s really exciting is to see it used for an artistic purpose.”
The golden jubilee celebration Thursday, April 27, brought together many of the theater company’s big benefactors who were instrumental in realizing the Strand project as well as generations of conservatory and performance alumni. Upon arrival, guests were greeted by a jazz trio from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in ACT’s Costume Shop two doors down from the Strand before walking the red carpet into the Strand lobby. Upstairs at the Strand, VIPs and performers including ValueAct Capital hedge fund CEO Jeff Ubben, philanthropist James Hormel and Michael Nguyen, Bernard Tyson and Denise Bradley Tyson, and “Tales of the City: The Musical” stars Judy Kaye, Mary Birdsong, Devon Graye and Betsy Wolfe mixed in the the Rueff lounge, named for gala committee members and ACT supporters Patti and Rusty Rueff.
For gala chair Priscilla Geeslin, what makes ACT special isn’t just the two theaters they now call home. “Whether you’re talking about the Strand or the
Geary, the extraordinary thing is that ACT is simply more than the sum of its parts,” Geeslin said. “You have the Young Conservatory, you have the MFA program, we have community outreach and education programs: All this is under the great umbrella of ACT. What we’re able to do continuing that education process in the theater is so important.”
“There’s only been three artistic directors in 50 years at ACT,” board chair Nancy Livingston noted. “That’s really wonderful. It means we’ve held onto people we love and kept true to the principles (founding artistic director) William Ball laid out 50 years ago.”
The dinner catered by McCalls was held in a clear tent erected in the vacant lot between the Strand and Costume Shop. As guests took their seats, red-nosed students in waiter drag performed a clowning ballet with plenty of pratfalls and near-misses with their serving trays to amuse guests. ACT board member and celebrity decorator Ken Fulk, in town between trips to New York for the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, looked every bit the theatrical gentleman in a set of black beaded Thom Browne tails that could have come straight from a posh Ibsen revival. Mary Beth and David Shimmon talked about taking their children to ACT to introduce them to the theater, starting with the annual production of “A Christmas Carol.” Board member emerita Dagmar Dolby reminisced about her late husband Ray Dolby’s favorite ACT production: a “wonderful, classic” version of Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale.”
Actor and ACT alumnus Harry Hamlin (MFA class of 1976) and his wife, actress Lisa Rinna, graciously took selfies with fans who complimented them on everything from Hamlin’s signature television role on “L.A. Law” to Rinna’s current gig on the reality hit “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
“There’s so much money here!” Rinna joked about the crowd and San Francisco’s booming economy. “It’s nice to see it going back to the arts.”
Hamlin originally came to ACT after volunteering to be William Ball’s assistant on a production of “Cyrano de Bergerac” in 1973.
“Bill was a genius,” Hamlin said. “He was my mentor. The program was 24/7 training, but you know what? I’m still here working after 40 years; they must have done something right.”
The night’s program started with onstage banter between Wong and Hamlin. Wong, who in 2014 performed in ACT’s production of “The Orphan of Zhao,” remembered seeing plays at ACT while growing up in San Francisco and in particular, remembered Hamlin’s first starring role in an ACT
production of Peter Shaffer’s “Equus.”
“The elephant in the room,” Wong said, “was Harry’s nude scene.”
“Well, not exactly an elephant,” Hamlin responded sheepishly.
“Au contraire, my friend,” Wong joked to the laughter of the crowd.
The night’s performances by students, alumni and stars included several Stephen Sondheim songs, three songs from “Tales of the City” as well as a reading of Ball’s 1965 manifesto for the founding of the company by inaugural company member Ken Ruta, retired producing director Jim Haire, actress and director Joy Carlin, ACT alumna and actor Nancy Carlin, and former core company member Stephen Anthony Jones. Young Conservatory alumni also saluted the program’s outgoing director, Craig Slaight, who has held the position since 1988. The $1.2 million raised from the gala supports ACT’s actor training and education and community programs, which reach more than 12,000 Bay Area students each year.
As guests adjourned to the afterparty back at the Strand, ACT Artistic Director Carey Perloff was reflective about the company’s milestone anniversary.
“It is a miracle, but it’s also the testament to a really great idea,” said Perloff, who came to ACT in 1992 and recently announced she’ll step down at the end of the 2017-18 season.
“The idea that Bill Ball had was lifelong learning and that training and performance should always be inextricably linked,” she continued. “It means the theater is always young, it’s always new, and it always has the next round of passionate people in training. ACT has never gotten jaded or cynical because there’s always a twentysomething saying, ‘How about this? What about that?’ That keeps things incredibly vibrant.”
“The theater is always young, it’s always new, and it always has the next round of passionate people in training.” Carey Perloff, ACT artistic director