Bock, Dukakis, Ivey, et al. Will Participate in First Look New Plays Festival at A.C.T.
Adam Bock, Olympia Dukakis, Judith Ivey, Carey Perloff, and Timberlake Wertenbaker are among the artists set to participate in American Conservatory Theater’s First Look New Plays Festival in San Francisco, January 20-February 18, with five separate productions each to receive a two-day, script-in-hand presentation.
Academy Award winner Dukakis will play Oenone in Wertenbaker’s adaptation of Jean Racine’s classic play Phédre on January 20 and 21. The production, directed by Brigitte Jaques-Wajeman, will star Ellen Karas in the title role and Scott Wentworth as Theseus. Wertenbaker is the author of Our Country’s Good, which received six Tony Award nominations and won both the Olivier and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards.
Karen Hartman’s Donna Wants, to be presented January 27 and 28, is a gender-reversed take on the legend of Don Juan. A.C.T. favorite René Augesen, who is currently starring in A Christmas Carol, will play the lead under the direction of Jonathan Moscone. The Shaker Chair (February 3 and 4) is the newest work from Bock, whose plays include Swimming in the Shallows and Five Flights; it will be directed by Anne Kauffman and presented in collaboration with Encore Theater and the Z Space.
Perloff, A.C.T’s artistic director, is involved in the final two presentations. She is directing Paul Webb’s Warsaw (February 10 and 11), which concerns a group of Polish student revolutionaries in the 1930s; and she is the author of Waiting for the Flood (February 17 and 18), about a group of female characters, some from the 1940s and some from the present day, who meet for tea as the world is on the brink of disaster. Ivey, a two-time Tony Award-winning actress, will direct the presentation.
Tickets for each presentation are priced at $10 for adults, $7 for students. A festival pass for all five performances is available for $40. To order tickets and/or to obtain more information, call 415-749-2228 or visit www.act-sf.org.
