Jonathan Moscone To Direct the West Coast Premiere of CLYBOURNE PARK

American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) Artistic Director Carey Perloff announced that California Shakespeare Theater Artistic Director and celebrated Bay Area director Jonathan Moscone will direct the West Coast premiere of Bruce Norris's critically acclaimed Clybourne Park as part of A.C.T.'s 2010-11 season. Moscone has been a part of the A.C.T. artistic family as a teacher in the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program and has directed numerous productions for the A.C.T. Conservatory, including, most recently, Her Naked Skin at Zeum Theater with the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2010. Clybourne Park will be his first outing on the A.C.T. mainstage. Moscone, who is celebrating his 10th summer season with the California Shakespeare Theater, said: "When I read Bruce's script, my hands were shaking with excitement. This is an extraordinary play-smart, funny, and genuinely provocative. I am so honored that Carey has entrusted me with this brave, electrifying work."

Home is where the heart-and history-is in Clybourne Park, a "spiky and damningly insightful new comedy" (The New York Times). In 1959, a couple sells their home in a middle-class Chicago neighborhood to a black family, causing uproar in their all-white community. Fifty years later, the stakes are different, but the debate is eerily familiar as negotiations about a white couple's renovation plans for the house-in what has become a historic black neighborhood-whirl into lightning-quick if uncomfortably-revealing repartee. A "buzz-saw sharp new comedy" (The Washington Post) from an adamant provocateur, Clybourne Park stirs up the incendiary ghosts of race and class hidden beneath the contemporary veneer of political correctness. Hailed by critics as "superb, elegantly written, and hilarious . . . a master class in comic writing" (The New Yorker) and "remarkably perceptive, hilarious, and surprisingly poignant" (Associated Press), Clybourne Park has been nominated for 2010 Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Lucille Lortel awards for outstanding play. Subscriptions for A.C.T.'s 2010-11 season are now available and offer incredible savings, unparalleled access, exclusive benefits, and personalized customer service. To subscribe or to receive a season brochure, please call 415.749.2250 or visit www.act-sf.org.

Jonathan Moscone is celebrating his tenth season as artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater, where he is directing John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven and Much Ado About Nothing later this season. Recently, he was awarded the inaugural Zelda Fichandler Award by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation for "transforming the American theatre through his unique and creative work." Regional credits include Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Goodspeed Musicals, Dallas Theatre Center, San Jose Repertory Theater, Portland Stage Company, and Magic Theatre. His work at California Shakespeare Theater and elsewhere has earned him Bay Area Critics' Circle and Dean Goodman Choice awards. Moscone is the recipient of a Stanford Graduate School of Business Center for Social Innovation Fellowship and currently serves on the board of LoveLife Foundation in Oakland. He is an adjunct faculty member with the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program and has served as a grant review panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Theater Communications Group, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Upcoming projects include the world premiere of Ghost Light with collaborator Tony Taccone for the 2011 Oregon Shakespeare Festival season and Amadeus for Houston's Alley Theatre.

Bruce Norris is a writer and an actor whose play Clybourne Park premiered at Playwrights Horizons in January of 2010. His other plays include The Infidel (2000), Purple Heart (2002), We All Went Down to Amsterdam (2003), The Pain and the Itch (2004), and The Unmentionables (2006), all of which premiered at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre. His work has also been produced at Lookingglass Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, The Royal Court Theater (London), and The Staatstheater Mainz (Germany). Mr. Norris is the recipient of the 2009 Steinberg Playwright Award, the Whiting Foundation Prize for Drama, and the Kesselring Prize, Honorable Mention. He also received Joseph Jefferson Awards for Best New Work for his plays We All Went Down to Amsterdam and The Pain and the Itch. He currently resides in New York.
A.C.T. subscriptions for all six plays start at $60, and subscribers save as much as 50% off single ticket prices. Educators and administrators are eligible for half-price subscriptions. To make subscriptions more affordable and advantageous, A.C.T. also offers all subscribers one free seat upgrade and an extended payment plan that allows for payment in two easy installments. A.C.T.'s competitive subscriber benefits include easy ticket exchanges up to the day of scheduled tickets, guaranteed best seats, ticket insurance, access to easy prepaid parking one block away from the theater, discounts for neighborhood restaurants, and Words on Plays, A.C.T.'s in-depth theater guide for each show. Single tickets for Scapin, Marcus, A Christmas Carol, and Clybourne Park will be available in August 2010. Single tickets for the rest of the plays will go on sale later in the season.

A.C.T.'s season is supported in part by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund; The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation New Works Fund, an endowed fund of The Next Generation Campaign; the National Endowment for the Arts; and company sponsors Priscilla and Keith Geeslin; Joan Lane; Nancy Livingston and Fred Levin, The Shenson Foundation; Burt and Deedee McMurtry; Kathleen Scutchfield; Mr. and Mrs. Steven L. Swig; Jeff and Laurie Ubben; and Susan Van Wagner.