Janet Foster Joins the A.C.T. Artistic Team

American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) Artistic Director Carey Perloff announced the appointment of Janet Foster as artistic associate and casting director. A respected casting director, Foster has previously served as casting director at Baltimore's CENTERSTAGE, Connecticut's Westport Country Playhouse, New York City's Playwrights Horizons, and Seattle's Intiman Theatre.

Since 1996, as a freelance casting director, she has cast a wide array of plays and musicals in New York City and all around the country, including the Broadway productions of The Light in the Piazza, Lennon, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. In the Bay Area, she has worked with Berkeley Repertory Theatre and California Shakespeare Theater. Foster was an adjunct faculty member at Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, and has taught seminars and workshops at numerous highly regarded institutions, including New York University and Yale University. Along with her casting duties at A.C.T., she will be part of the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program faculty. She began work at A.C.T. on Monday, October 3.

"It is a great pleasure to welcome such a distinguished and nationally recognized theater artist to A.C.T.," said Perloff. "Janet is not only an important casting director but also a highly accomplished teacher who will add immeasurably to the curriculum of the Master of Fine Arts Program and to A.C.T.'s broader educational initiatives. We're also thrilled that, during her casting tenure in New York, Janet consistently hired and supported A.C.T graduates. She is looking forward to getting to know the Bay Area acting pool and to becoming part of this remarkable theater community."

"I am privileged to find myself in the Bay Area working with such an inspired creative team and such a talented community of theater artists," said Foster. "A.C.T. has a long history of creating high quality theater for this community and I am thrilled to be the newest member of this extraordinary team. I have a huge appreciation for the wealth of talent I've encountered in the Bay Area through my casting experiences at Cal Shakes and Berkeley Rep, and I am looking forward to immersing myself further in this wonderful community of actors."

Janet Foster began her casting career in 1986 as an assistant to the late Stanley Soble after receiving her M.F.A. in acting from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. When Soble left to begin his work at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, Foster joined the team at Playwrights Horizons as a casting assistant and worked her way up to casting director during her tenure there. While at Playwrights Horizons, she developed an association with the Intiman Theatre in Seattle and became their New York casting director; during that time, she also served as a guest lecturer at universities, colleges, and theater programs throughout the county. From New York University and Rutgers to Yale and the North Carolina School of the Arts, she has provided theater students the insight they need to succeed in "the biz." Foster was most recently an adjunct faculty member at Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, and left Playwrights Horizon in 1996 to become a freelance casting director, adding television and film projects to her extensive theater resume. In addition to casting Broadway and off-Broadway shows, Foster served as casting director for Cosby for CBS, Tracy Takes on New York for HBO, and recently The Day That Lehman Died, a radio program for BBC World Services. She is also the founder of ACTOR 411, which offers informational seminars to actors in the New York City area and beyond.

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