SEP/OCT 2013 - American Conservatory Theater

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 Theater, 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 American 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 American Art in New
York and the National Portrait
Gallery in Washington, D.C.
FOR INFORMATION, INCLUDING
PHOTOS, VIDEOS, AND MORE,
VISIT ACT-SF.ORG.
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