New Works

A.C.T. has long been committed to the notion that playwrights do their best work in community with other artists, and that the development of vibrant writing for the stage depends on investing in and nurturing writers' talents. As part of this continuing effort to develop new plays, adaptations, and translations, in September 2003 A.C.T. launched the successful First Look program with a production of Philip Kan Gotanda's Yohen.

Dedicated to meeting the individual needs of the artists for their unique projects, First Look has taken a variety of approaches to new work development. Some pieces, like Gotanda's play and José Rivera's Brainpeople, have been performed in fully realized productions. Other workshops have wrapped up without any presentation component, but have given writers open access to A.C.T.'s skilled core company, Master of Fine Arts Program actors, and other resident artists in developing their work. Between those two extremes are private table readings and semistaged presentations, public showings of works in development, and open rehearsals and discussions with the artists about their nascent ideas. A.C.T. strives to develop projects according to different models, each one customized to the needs of the specific work and writer.

Although First Look is not restricted to a specific period within a season—it is rare, in fact, when exploration of new work is not happening in our artistic department, M.F.A. Program, and/or Young Conservatory—this January promises a rich concentration of First Look projects. For three weeks at the top of the new year, A.C.T. company members, core faculty, and students will collaborate with writers, actors, and directors on a number of different projects, each at a different stage of development. We are excited for you to know what we'll be up to!

Pulitzer Prize–finalist Eisa Davis, a Bay Area-born and –raised actress/singer/writer, will use core company and Master of Fine Arts Program actors to explore and develop a brand new work (which will examine air travel and environmentalism), after sharing a reading of her new play The History of Light.

San Francisco and A.C.T. favorite, Philip Kan Gotanda will workshop his new play I Dream of Chang and Eng, the story of the famous 19th-century conjoined Siamese twins as they journey to the West—a world of riches, glitter, promise, and brutality.

Local auteur Mark Jackson will be generating a devised piece of theater with the third-year class of Master of Fine Arts Program actors, who just finished a marvelous run of A Christmas Carol on the mainstage.

Internationally acclaimed theater director, playwright, and video and installation artist Ping Chong will workshop The Bright Eye of the Moon, his adaptation of Eileen Chang's novella Aloeswood Incense which explores the generational clash between traditional Chinese culture and 1940s modernization through the relationship of a girl and her aunt.

Sharr White, whose play Sunlight premieres at Marin Theatre on January 21, will have the third-year class of Master of Fine Arts Program actors at his disposal to explore his play Other Place.

Christina Anderson, an M.F.A. candidate in the Yale School of Drama's playwriting program, will work with A.C.T.'s head of movement, Stephen Buescher, to create the physical world of Blacktop Sky, her play about a young girl who comes to care for a seemingly crazy young man in the blacktop courtyard of her housing project.

Third-year Master of Fine Arts Program students David Jacobs and Kyle Schaeffer will direct their peers in two 10-minute shorts written by A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff: Sam and Marianne Write a Novel and The Morning After, which was a finalist for the Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

If you are interested in learning more about First Look, please contact A.C.T. Publications & Literary Associate Dan Rubin at drubin@act-sf.org.