by TOM STOPPARD Directed by CAREY PERLOFF - Convio

A.C.T. PROFILESCAREY PERLOFF(Artistic Director) iscelebrating her 15thseason as artisticdirector of A.C.T.,where she most recentlydirected acclaimedproductions of BertoltBrecht/Kurt Weill’sHappy End (including a cast album recording),A Christmas Carol (a new adaptation byPerloff with Paul Walsh), David Mamet’snew adaptation of Granville-Barker’s TheVoysey Inheritance, Tom Stoppard’s The RealThing, Constance Congdon’s A Mother (anA.C.T.–commissioned adaptation of Gorky’sVassa Zheleznova), Ibsen’s A Doll’s House,Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Stoppard’s Nightand Day, and Chekhov’s The Three Sisters.Her production of Marie Ndiaye’s Hilda,coproduced at A.C.T.’s second space (Zeum)with Laura Pels Productions, traveled toWashington, D.C.’s Studio Theatre and thento New York’s 59E59Theater in 2005. Lastyear she was awarded France’s Chevalier del’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.Known for directing innovativeproductions of classics and championing newwriting for the theater, Perloff has directed forA.C.T. the American premieres of Stoppard’sThe Invention of Love and Indian Ink andPinter’s Celebration and The Room; A.C.T.–commissioned translations of Hecuba, TheMisanthrope, Enrico IV, Mary Stuart, and UncleVanya; the world premiere of Leslie Ayvazian’sSinger’s Boy; and acclaimed productions of TheThreepenny Opera, Old Times, Arcadia, TheRose Tattoo, Antigone, Creditors, Home, andThe Tempest. Her work at A.C.T. also includesthe world premieres of Marc Blitzstein’s Nofor an Answer, David Lang/Mac Wellman’sThe Difficulty of Crossing a Field, and the WestCoast premiere of her own play The Colossusof Rhodes (a finalist for the Susan SmithBlackburn Award). Her play LuminescenceDating, which will be seen at the MagicTheatre in December (in a coproduction withA.C.T.), was developed under a grant fromThe Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. SloanFoundation Science & Technology Project,was workshopped in the summer of 2004 atNew York Stage & Film, premiered in NewYork in April 2005 at the Ensemble StudioTheatre, and will be published by DramatistsPlay Service this fall. Her new play, Waiting forthe Flood, was directed by Judith Ivey as part ofA.C.T.’s First Look festival in January. She hascollaborated with many notable contemporarywriters, most recently Philip Kan Gotanda,LISA KOHLERon his new play After the War at the SundanceInstitute in 2004 (an A.C.T. commission thatwill premiere in 2007), and Robert O’Hara, onAntebellum for the 2005 O’Neill PlaywrightsConference.Before joining A.C.T., Perloff was artisticdirector of Classic Stage Company in NewYork, where she directed the world premiereof Ezra Pound’s Elektra, the Americanpremiere of Pinter’s Mountain Language andThe Birthday Party, and many classic works.Under Perloff ’s leadership, Classic Stage wonnumerous OBIE Awards for acting, direction,and design, as well as the 1988 OBIE forartistic excellence. In 1993, she directed theworld premiere of Steve Reich and BerylKorot’s opera The Cave at the Vienna Festivaland Brooklyn Academy of Music.Perloff received a B.A. Phi Beta Kappain classics and comparative literature fromStanford University and was a FulbrightFellow at Oxford. She was on the faculty ofthe Tisch School of the Arts at New YorkUniversity for seven years and teaches anddirects in the A.C.T. Master of Fine ArtsProgram. She is the proud mother of Lexieand Nicholas.HEATHERKITCHEN(Executive Director),now in her 11thseason with A.C.T.,has strengthenedthe organization’sinfrastructure andoverseen the company’sexpansion to include the development andperformance of new work and the addition ofa third year to A.C.T.’s acclaimed Master ofFine Arts Program. Her decision to undertakean M.B.A. degree from the Richard IveySchool of Business at The University ofWestern Ontario followed a 15-year careerin stage, tour, and production managementranging across Canada, the United States,and the United Kingdom. Credits includethe Stratford Festival, Canadian StageCompany, Charlottetown Festival, TheatreNew Brunswick, New Play Centre, Vancouver,and Neptune Theatre in Halifax. As generalmanager of The Citadel Theatre, Kitchenmanaged a five-theater performing artscomplex and school that annually produced16 productions, an International Children’sFestival, and a Teen Festival. As a member ofthe executive committee of the EdmontonPerforming Arts Consortium, Kitchenauthored the benchmark study EconomicImpact of the Nonprofit Arts in Edmonton. Anactive community member, Kitchen serves onthe boards and executive committees of theCommonwealth Club of California, as well asthe board of the National Corporate TheatreFund in New York. She is a past memberof the San Francisco Leadership Board ofthe American Red Cross, the board of BigBrothers/Big Sisters, San Francisco and thePeninsula, and the Salvation Army Auxiliaryin Edmonton and has served three termson the executive of the League of ResidentTheatres. She has also participated on peerreview panels for Theatre CommunicationsGroup, Canada Council of the Arts, and Forbesmagazine’s Business and the Arts Awards. TheSan Francisco Business Times named Kitchenone of the most influential women in businessin the Bay Area for the past three years.MELISSA SMITH (Conservatory Director)oversees the administration of the A.C.T.Conservatory’s Master of Fine Arts Program,Young Conservatory, Summer TrainingCongress, and Studio A.C.T., in additionto serving as the master acting teacher ofthe M.F.A. Program. Before joining A.C.T.in 1995, Smith served as director of theprogram in theater and dance at PrincetonUniversity, where she taught acting for sixyears. She has worked with people of allages in venues around the country, includingteaching in Hawaii and in Florence, Italy.Also a professional actor, she has performedin numerous off-off Broadway plays and atregional theaters, including A.C.T. In 2004she toured London and Birmingham (U.K.)in Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s productionof Continental Divide. Smith holds a B.A. inEnglish and theater from Yale College andan M.F.A. in acting from the Yale School ofDrama.JAMES HAIRE (Producing Director)began his career on Broadway with Eva LeGallienne’s National Repertory Theater asan actor and Stage Manager. He also stagemanagedthe Broadway productions of AndMiss Reardon Drinks a Little and Georgy (amusical by Carole Bayer Sager), as well as thenational tour of Woody Allen’s Don’t Drinkthe Water. Off Broadway he produced Ibsen’sLittle Eyolf (directed by Marshall W. Mason)and Shaw’s Arms and the Man. Haire joinedA.C.T. in 1971. He and his departmentwere awarded Theater Crafts International’saward for excellence in the theater in 1989,and in 1992 Haire was awarded a lifetimeachievement award by the Bay Area TheatreCritics’ Circle.Travesties 23