ACT Announces New Plays For 'First Look' Series

Two groundbreaking new works directed by leading theater artists will take the stage at American Conservatory Theater's First Look New Plays Festival, running April 11 through April 26 at Zeum Theater. The plays include The Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry, a deeply poetic new play by Marcus Gardley, and the newest version of Lillian Groag's theatrical adaptation of renowned poet Christopher Logue's War Music, a contemporary retelling of Homer's Iliad. Each play will receive two script-in-hand workshop performances following an intense week of work by the many artists engaged. Tickets to individual performances are $10.50 for adults and $7.50 for students and seniors, and are available by calling A.C.T. Ticket Services at 415.749.2228 or online at www.act-sf.org

 "First Look is really for the writers," says A.C.T. artistic director Carey Perloff. "It gives their new material time to live with a group of amazing artists, and the writer and the audience get a rare opportunity to hear a draft of the play." Associate artistic director Pink Pasdar adds, "Both of the pieces we're working on this month are already well developed. Both are ambitious in scope, with large casts and even larger themes of community, war, and survival."

The festival kicks off April 11 with Gardley's The Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry, directed by Bay Area sensation Aaron Davidman. "I use heightened language to give a sense of the mythic element," says Gardley, "There's a sense of both story and myth in the play, and magic realism is a way into that world." Gardley and Davidman, who recently collaborated on the Shotgun Players' critically acclaimed Love Is a Dream House in Lorin, are reuniting to explore the rich world of Bay Area native Gardley's new play, in which a group of former slaves and Seminoles wrestle with identity and survival while forging a new life in Oklahoma in the mid-1800s. "Marcus stands out as a truly unique, new, and powerful voice in American playwriting," says Pasdar, "and I'm thrilled to have the chance to work on what I think is some of his most ambitious, daring work to date."

The festival continues April 25 with the latest version of War Music, which is slated to play A.C.T. in a full production as part of the 2008-09 season. The Los Angeles Times has called War Music  "brilliantly original, consummately crafted . . . poetry that shines with greatness." Groag has turned Logue's adaptation of Homer into a groundbreaking work of interdisciplinary art. "Logue's sharply cinematic style of writing is part of the allure and challenge of staging a poem of this magnitude," says Pasdar, "a task Lillian Groag, an accomplished playwright and director in her own right, is perfectly suited for." This First Look reading offers audiences a rare chance to get a sneak peak at this bold venture.

A.C.T. inaugurated its popular First Look series in September 2003 with a production of Philip Kan Gotanda's Yohen. In January 2005, First Look produced the American premiere of Hilda, by Marie Ndiaye. Workshops and staged readings done as part of the program include Slay the Dragon, by Victor Lodato, The New Americans, by Cindy Lou Johnson, Splitting Infinity, by Jamie Pachino, Donna Wants by Karen Hartman, Racine's Phedre in a new adaptation by Timberlake Wertenbaker, Warsaw by Paul Webb, The Shaker Chair by Adam Bock, Freeport, Texas, by Michael Springate, Waiting for the Flood and Luminescence Dating, by Carey Perloff, One, No One..., by Luigi Pirandello (in a new translation and adaptation by Marco Barricelli and Beatrice Basso), The Four of Us, by Itamar Moses, La Bella Familia, by Edwin Sanchez, The Velvet Sky, by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Brainpeople, by José Rivera, The Tosca Project, by Carey Perloff and Val Caniparoli, and Molière's The Imaginary Invalid, in a new adaptation by Constance Congdon.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:
American Conservatory Theater's First Look Series Presents

THE FIRST LOOK NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL
April 11-April 26
Zeum Theater, 4th and Howard streets, San Francisco

The Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry
Written by Marcus Gardley
Directed by Aaron Davidman
April 11 & 12, 2008

War Music
Adapted and directed by Lillian Groag
Based on the book by Christopher Logue
April 26 & 26, 2008

All presented as script-in-hand workshop productions.

Curtain is at 8 p.m. for all performances.

Tickets
Tickets are $10.50 for adults; $7.50 for students, seniors, and A.C.T. subscribers.
To purchase tickets, call 415.749.2228 or visit www.act-sf.org.