BRIGHT YOUNG PEOPLE Tribute To Noel Coward Runs 5/8-5/23 At Zeum Theater

A.C.T. Young Conservatory proudly presents Bright Young People: The Words and Music of Noël Coward, a brilliant, buoyant tribute to one of the greatest theater artists of all time. This world premiere revue showcases everything you love about Noël Coward-the songs, the wit, the style-with scenes and music from his greatest hits, such as The Vortex, Design for Living, and Hay Fever, as well as lesser known gems, some of which haven't been produced since the 1920s.

Set in an English garden, Bright Young People brims with heart and humor as it follows the relationships of four young couples living in the 1930s. With special permission from the Noël Coward Estate in London, Young Conservatory Director Craig Slaight enjoyed unprecedented access to the Coward archive in creating this imaginative new work, specifically designed for A.C.T.'s audacious cast of young actors. Bright Young People plays May 8-23, 2009, at Zeum Theater, located at Yerba Buena Gardens (Fourth and Howard streets). Tickets are $15.50-$20.50 and are available by calling A.C.T. Ticket Services at 415.749.2228 or online at www.act-sf.org.

"Noël Coward's wit and pathos, his heightened style in language and manners, and his unique voice all make him a wonderful writer to engage young actors," says Slaight about the fit of this musical revue with A.C.T.'s award-winning Young Conservatory. "We are all hoping that this play might have a life beyond our production in countless youth theater groups and schools in both the United States and England." Alan Brodie, chairman of the Noël Coward Estate, adds: "The Noel Coward Estate is delighted that the A.C.T. Young Conservatory has put together a show which is aimed at younger people. The Estate is determined to ensure that Coward's work reaches out to new generations, and we are sure that Bright Young People will play an important role in fulfilling that aim. We wish Craig Slaight and the young cast all the very best for the show."

With regards to the young actors' approach to Coward's work, Slaight adds, "One of the goals in any acting training program is to broaden the actors understanding and grasp of a variety of styles of theater, from classic to contemporary. Where Coward's work is sometimes produced with an overabundance of cliché, our goal is to recreate Coward's truth. Rather than play at the style, rather than make fun of the manners, we are striving to immerse ourselves into his very particular world and find the humor and the bitter truth so evident in all of his work."

A talented group of young Bay Area actors makes up the cast and band for Bright Young People. The cast features Danielle Bowen (Tamalpais High School), Rachel Cunningham (Saint Ignatius College Prepatory), Christopher Garber (Crystal Springs Uplands School), Hannah Gorman (The Urban School of San Francisco), Simone Hudson (The Urban School of San Francisco), Michael Martinez (Sergio Martinez High School), Marguerite Scott (Saint Ignatius College Prepatory), Ryan Semmelmayer, Abram St. Amand Poliakoff (Menlo School), and Jeffrey Taylor (Aragon High School). The band consists of Robert Rutt, who is also responsible for the arrangements, and young musicians Alec Page (The Urban School of San Francisco) and Audrey Vardanega (The Crowden School).

Noël Coward, perhaps best known today as a playwright, was a man of multiple talents, considered by many to be the greatest all-around entertainer of the first half of the 20th century. Born in 1899 to a middle-class family in Teddington, Middlesex, England, he rose to become an international celebrity, on friendly terms with the British royal family. Coward began his stage career as a child actor at the age of ten. His first great success as actor/playwright came in 1924 with The Vortex, a succès de scandale that dealt with drugs and boy toys and established Coward the playwright as the angry young man of the 1920s. His next hits were the comedy Hay Fever and the operetta Bitter Sweet (1929). In 1930 he wrote Private Lives for Gertrude Lawrence and himself; they played to sell-out runs in London and New York. In 1935, he penned Tonight at 8:30 (a collection of nine one-acts, played in repertory), which he and Lawrence performed in 1936. Though Coward wrote more than 50 plays, revues, and musicals, he also created numerous short stories, a bestselling novel, a book of verse, several films, and more than 500 songs (including the famous "Mad Dogs and Englishmen"). He had a wide range as a composer and lyricist.

Coward was also an actor, producer, and director for stage, radio, television, and film. His film projects included Brief Encounter, which he wrote and produced, based on his one-act play Still Life from Tonight at 8:30. The film's 1945 release was number two on the list of the top 100 British films of all time compiled by the British Film Institute in 1999. In 1943, Coward was awarded a special Academy Award for the "outstanding production achievement" of the film In Which We Serve, a patriotic wartime drama he wrote, produced, and codirected and in which he starred.

In the 1950s, when postwar critics rejected the wit and charm of Coward's boulevard comedies in favor of the gritty "low-life" (Coward's words) drama of Britain's new generation of "Angry Young Men," he reinvented himself as a cabaret entertainer, based on his experience playing for troops during World War II. After several successful seasons in London, he brought his act across the Atlantic in 1955, becoming the highest-paid performer to play Las Vegas. With successful British revivals of Private Lives and Hay Fever in 1963-64, the tide turned again in his favor. In 1970 he was awarded a special Tony Award for his "multiple and immortal contributions to the theater." Coward was knighted in 1970 and died peacefully at his home in Jamaica in 1973.

Craig Slaight is an Associate Artist and the Director of the Young Conservatory at American Conservatory Theater. Slaight assumed the leadership of the Young Conservatory in 1988. During his time at A.C.T. Slaight has taught in all of the conservatory programs, served as a resident director on the A.C.T. mainstage, and is a member of the artistic team of the company. Slaight began the Young Conservatory's New Plays Program in 1989 with the mission to develop plays by outstanding professional playwrights that view the world through the eyes of the young. To date seventeen New Plays are collected in publications by Smith and Kraus publishers, New Plays from the A.C.T. Young Conservatory, Volumes I, II, III, and IV. The second volume received recognition from the New York Public Library as an Outstanding Book for the Teenager in 1997. In 1999, Slaight forged a collaboration with the prestigious Royal National Theatre in London, working on developing new plays for young people (writers have included Bryony Lavery, Sarah Daniels, and Sharman Macdonald). In 2000, Slaight's Young Conservatory production of Time on Fire by Timothy Mason was the first production by a young American company to ever play the Royal National Theatre. In 2003, the international collaboration was expanded to include co-commissions and shared productions with Theatre Royal Bath. And in 2005, Slaight began a collaboration with theater companies in Switzerland. With A.C.T.'s Jack Sharrar, Slaight has published ten acting and play anthologies for young actors (Smith and Kraus Publishers). Prior to coming to A.C.T., Slaight was an award-winning professional director in Los Angeles (directing such notables as Julie Harris, Linda Purl, Betty Garrett, Harold Gould, and Robert Foxworth). Slaight is a consultant to the Educational Theater Association, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, The Actor's Workshop of Toronto, the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the Royal National Theatre of London, Theatre Royal Bath, and Ten Chimneys Foundation and is a frequent guest artist throughout the country. In August of 1994, Slaight received the President's Award from the Educational Theater Association for Outstanding Contributions to Youth Theater. In January of 1998, he was chosen to receive the first annual A.C.T. Artistic Director's Award.

The A.C.T. Young Conservatory offers a broad range of theater training for young people aged 8 to 19. The ten sessions and four public productions offered throughout the year are designed to develop talent and creativity, as well as communication and cooperation skills, for young people with all levels of theater background. Working professional actors and directors lead students in a spectrum of classes, including acting, directing, voice and speech, musical theater, audition, and improvisation. Call 415.439.2444 or visit act-sf.org/conservatory for applications and information.

A.C.T.'s stage at Zeum Theater is dedicated to the development of new works, new forms, and new artists. A.C.T.@Zeum was launched in October 2001 with the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program's world-premiere staging of Marc Blitzstein's No for an Answer, directed by A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff. Zeum Theater is the current home of the Young Conservatory New Plays Program and gives A.C.T. an additional stage for readings, workshops, rehearsals, and other aspects of new play and production development.

Bright Young People is made possible by a generous grant from The Bernard Osher Foundation. Additional support provided by the Crescent Porter Hale Foundation and donors to A.C.T.'s season gala, Illuminate the Night, April 19, 2009.

A.C.T. performing at Zeum Theater
Yerba Buena Gardens, Fourth and Howard streets
San Francisco, CA 94103
A.C.T. Ticket Services: 415.749.2228
www.act-sf.org