American Conservatory Theater

The American Conservatory Theater was founded in 1965 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by theatre and opera director William Ball in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Playhouse and Carnegie Mellon University. Ball presented twenty-seven fully staged productions in rotating repertory, in two different theaters – the Geary Theater and the Marines Memorial Theatre – during the first 40-week season.

A.C.T.'s original twenty-seven member acting company featured René Auberjonois, Peter Donat, Richard Dysart, Michael Learned, Ruth Kobart, Paul Shenar, Charles Siebert, Ken Ruta, and Kitty Winn among others. Ball's mid-1970s productions of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, starring Marc Singer, and Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Peter Donat and Marsha Mason, were televised by PBS.

In the mid-1980s, Ball, suffering from exhaustion and under accusations of financial mismanagement, was forced to relinquish his post as artistic director. He was succeeded by A.C.T. founding member and stage director Edward Hastings, who revived the company's fortunes until the Geary Theater was severely damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The company continued performing in a number of San Francisco venues.

Carey Perloff served as A.C.T.'s artistic director from 1992 to 2018. In 2007, A.C.T. released a cast album of Perloff's production of the Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill musical Happy End, produced by LucasArts studios. It includes the full score and is the first English language recording of this musical. Pam MacKinnon was appointed to succeed Perloff as artistic director, effective with the end of the 2017–2018 season.[4]

J. Gottlob and Melville Marx, proprietors of the former Columbia Theater

A.C.T.'s primary home in San Francisco is the Toni Rembe Theater (formerly the Geary Theater,[5] located at 415 Geary Street near the corner of Mason Street in the Theatre District of San Francisco. Built in 1910 and designed by Walter D. Bliss and William B. Faville in the Classical Revival and Late Victorian styles, it was previously known as the Columbia Theater. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 27, 1975 under the name "Geary Theater", and was designated an official San Francisco Designated Landmark on July 11, 1976 under the name "Geary Theater".[3]

In 2015, A.C.T. opened the Strand Theater at 1127 Market Street between 7th and 8th Streets, across from the U.N. Plaza in the Civic Center neighborhood of San Francisco. The building has a 283-seat theater as well as a 120-seat event and performance space. A.C.T. utilizes the theater to present educational workshops, cabaret performances and specially commissioned new works, as well as productions connected to their M.F.A. and Young Conservatory programs.[6]

Close-up of The Toni Rembe Theatre (formerly Geary Theater) facade

The Strand Theater, at 1127 Market Street, was opened in 2015 as A.C.T.'s second space (2017)

A.C.T.'s conservatory was accredited to grant Master of Fine Arts degrees for actors. However, due to lack of funding, A.C.T. Ended its MFA program in May 2022.[7]

A.C.T. offers training through the Studio A.C.T., the Summer Training Congress, and Young Conservatory programs.

The first person to be given the title sound designer in regional theater was Dan Dugan at A.C.T. in the late 1960s.[9] The term sound design was introduced to the film world when Francis Ford Coppola directed a production of Private Lives at A.C.T. for which his father, Carmine Coppola, arranged the music and Charlie Richmond was the sound designer while the final cut of the film The Godfather was being edited in 1972.

• List of San Francisco Designated Landmarks
• American Musical Theatre of San Jose

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Geary Theater (San Francisco).

• American Conservatory Theater official website
• American Conservatory Theater at the Internet Broadway Database
• View a 1969 documentary film about A.C.T., made by KQED (TV)