INSIDE A.C.T. A.C.T.'S COSTUME SHOP HOSTS LOCAL ARTS ORGANIZATIONS by Dan Rubin The 2011 opening celebration of A.C.T.'s Costume Shop (photo by Orange Photography) 36 | AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER ACT-SF.ORG | 415.749.2228
INSIDE A.C.T. Officially opening its doors at 1117 Market Street in fall 2011 as part of the 24 Days of Central Market Arts festival, A.C.T.’s Costume Shop has quickly become one of San Francisco’s quirkiest and most versatile performance venues— and not just for A.C.T.’s shows and training and education programs. Starting in 2012, grants from the San Francisco Neighborhood Arts Collaborative and The Kenneth Rainin Foundation enabled A.C.T. to provide no-cost performance space to 22 local organizations that have created a rich and eclectic variety of artistic work. Last season, The Costume Shop hosted workshops, readings, plays, a cappella and other music performances, and a shadow puppet show—as well as a number of gatherings for organizations working to preserve and present the arts. Recovery <strong>Theater</strong>, a group made up of performers affected by substance abuse or mental health issues; Singers of the Street, a community choir of San Franciscans affected by homelessness; and Bindlestiff Studio, dedicated to Pilipino and Filipino <strong>American</strong> artists, all took up residence at The Costume Shop, as did Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Magic Theatre, Encore Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, PlayGround, Campo Santo, Theatre Rhinoceros, and others. This season, A.C.T. is excited to continue these community engagement efforts with another impressive line-up. In the summer, PlayGround returned for a month-long residency, featuring readings, performances, and playwriting workshops by local writers. In early August, the local performance company IXALT presented Between the Shore and the Break, a story shared through hula dancing. This fall will see work from Jump! Theatre, which is committed to presenting quality works of theater that tell authentic stories of mental illness. Do It Live! Productions will present Roland Schimmelpfennig’s tragicomic tale of globalization The Golden Dragon. And the Bay Area’s 2by4 theater company is producing the world premiere of local playwright Christopher Chen’s Caught. At the opening celebration of A.C.T.’s newest space in 2011, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee hailed the venture as “a wonderful example of the spirit that has taken hold on Central Market to transform and infuse the area with art, performance, and gathering spaces.” Our presence in Central Market will continue to grow in the coming seasons as we prepare to open our 299-seat second stage theater, The Strand, in early 2015. Until then, The Costume Shop continues to show us how theater spaces can truly bring communities together. p IN THE LOBBY OF A.C.T.’S COSTUME SHOP you can find our hugely popular Art-o-mat ® machine. Made from revamped vintage cigarette machines, Art-o-mats ® dispense small, cigarette pack–sized original pieces of artwork. Ranging from stained glass to watercolors to clay sculptures, the original artwork can be purchased from the machine for just $5 per item. Clark Whittington, an artist from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, created Art-o-mat ® in 1997 as a way to sell photos at his art show in a local café. After the success of the installation, Whittington recruited other local artists to join the project and formed Artists in Cellophane with the intent to easily distribute affordable art to the general public. Since then, the project has grown to include works from more than 400 artists from around the world in more than 100 colorfully custom-designed machines placed throughout the United States, including at the Whitney Museum of <strong>American</strong> Art in New York and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. FOR INFORMATION, INCLUDING PHOTOS, VIDEOS, AND MORE, VISIT ACT-SF.ORG. CONNECT WITH US 1776/ 37
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