Communion
by Christopher ChenDirected by Pam MacKinnon
May 28–Jun 27,2021
Communion
May 28–Jun 27,2021
Obie Award–winning playwright Christopher Chen is a master of psychological intrigue. His plays invite an audience to experience a world of unknown.
Actor Stacy Ross has been on stages throughout the Bay Area, appearing as everyone from Hedda Gabler to Leni Riefenstahl. You’ve most likely spent many hours watching Stacy, experiencing her emotions, and reveling in her talent; you may think you know her—but do you?
A.C.T. invites you to connect through Zoom with a celebrated actor looking to commune with a private audience. Chris, Stacy, and A.C.T. Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon have come together to create a live, world-premiere experience written just for A.C.T. that is part docudrama, part mystery, part confessional, and totally theatrical. By performance’s end you may still be unsure who Stacy Ross really is—but through the process of communing, she’ll most definitely know more about you.
Reserve your space to attend a live performance of Communion. We want to say more, but we’ve already said too much.
All titles, schedules, and artists are subject to change.
Ticket sales stop 4 hours before each performance.
This production of Communion is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts
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House Rules of Play
We encourage all responses as we experience theater together.
Creative
Stacy Ross
Actor
Biography
STACY ROSS is happy—and a little surprised, given the past year—to be back at A.C.T., having spent the last year in Zoom readings, gardening, and framing pictures . . . Last seen at A.C.T. in The Hard Problem. Other most recent work from “the before times” includes The Year of Magical Thinking at Aurora Theatre Company, The War of the Roses at California Shakespeare Theater, and Free For All (a New Miss Julie for a New World) at Cutting Ball Theater.
Christopher Chen
Playwright
Biography
CHRISTOPHER CHEN is a playwright born and bred in San Francisco. His plays include Caught, The Headlands, The Hundred Flowers Project, The Late Wedding, Mutt, Passage, and You Mean To Do Me Harm. Honors: 2021 USA Fellow, Obie Award for playwriting, Barrymore Award, Glickman Award, Lanford Wilson Award, Sundance Institute/Time Warner Fellowship, Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, and the inaugural Ollie Award. Current commissions: American Conservatory Theater, Audible, Cutting Ball, Playwrights Horizons, Portland Center Stage. Education: BA, UC Berkeley; MFA in playwriting, San Francisco State University.
Pam MacKinnon
Director
Biography
PAM MACKINNON (Artistic Director) is celebrating her third season as A.C.T.’s fourth artistic director. She is a Tony, Drama Desk, and Obie Award–winning director, having directed upwards of 70 productions around the country, off-Broadway, and on Broadway. Her Broadway credits include Beau Willimon’s The Parisian Woman (with Uma Thurman), Amelie: A New Musical, David Mamet’s China Doll (with Al Pacino), Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles (with Elisabeth Moss), Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance (with Glenn Close and John Lithgow), Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle nomination), and Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park (Obie Award, Tony and Lucille Lortel nominations). Her most recent credits include Bruce Norris’s Downstate (Steppenwolf Theatre Company, London's National Theatre), Lydia R. Diamond's Toni Stone (Roundabout Theatre Company), and Edward Albee's Seascape (A.C.T.). She is an artistic associate of the Roundabout Theatre Company, an advisory board member of Clubbed Thumb, and an alum of the Drama League, Women’s Project, and Lincoln Center Theater’s Directors’ Labs. She is also the executive board president of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). She grew up in Toronto, Canada, and Buffalo, New York, acted through her teens, but majored in economics and political science at the University of Toronto and briefly pursued a PhD in political science at UC San Diego, before returning to her true passion: theater. (she/her)
PeopleExtra
This Season
2021 Season
Previously
Virtually Speaking: Annette Bening Conversation
Dec 01, 2020–Jun 30, 2021
A.C.T. Out Loud
Mar 29–May 2, 2021
Virtually Speaking: Ken Ruta Conversation
May 01–Jun 30, 2021
Animal Wisdom
May 15–Jun 27, 2021
Communion
May 28–Jun 27,2021
Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, The Musical
Jun 21–Jun 27, 2021