BETWEEN RIVER SIDE AND CRAZY at ACT Theatre

About Between Riverside and Crazy

A.C.T.'s Geary Theater
415 Geary Street

Running time: 2 hours, plus one 15‑minute intermission
 

"Highest Rating! Darkly funny! Rich . . . poetic . . . a very smart, timely and deeply humane play." San Francisco Chronicle Read the rave review from the San Francisco Chronicle

“Flat-out hysterical! Tender . . . richly nuanced . . . a wild ride.” —Bay Area News Group

“This cast is, to put it mildly, beyond belief! It deals head on with powerful emotion . . . and [a] whole lot of humor!” TheaterDogs.net

“Stephen Adley Guirgis’ look at police violence, race relations, dysfunctional families, and how the bureaucratic steamroller will mow down a man’s integrity. It’s remarkably pithy for tackling so many subjects at once . . . tightly directed—and it’s frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious.” —SF Weekly

“★ ★ ★ ★! A rich new play . . . it is a dizzying and exciting place to be!” —New York Times

“This is the kind of rich, dynamic theater you almost never see anymore—fresh, savage and original. Like a stick of dynamite, it shines a laser light on the shadowy aspects of being a black cop, fighting the system, and never giving up or giving in.”  —New York Observer

“Tender . . . gritty . . . shocking” —New York Daily News

In this outrageous new dark comedy from Stephen Adly Guirgis (The Motherf*cker with the Hat, Jesus Hopped the A Train), ex-cop and recent widower Walter “Pops” Washington is desperately trying to hold on to his prime piece of real estate—one of the last great rent-stabilized apartments in New York City—while simultaneously battling his inner demons. His landlord wants him and his newly paroled son out; his cop friends are begging him to back down from a lawsuit against City Hall; the local liquor store has closed; and a beautiful, mysterious Santeria practitioner promises salvation in the midst of all the chaos. A hilarious and timely story that tackles gentrification, recovery, faith, sketchy houseguests, and the saving grace of family, Between Riverside and Crazy is “a genuine original that deserves to be seen by anyone hungry for a smart, exuberantly funny urban dramedy” (Newsday).

The Last Five Years: Bittersweet Musical About Marriage & Memory

The Last Five Years | The Geary Theater
Music & Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
A musical in concert, starring Adam Kantor and Betsy Wolfe

From the Tony Award–winning composer of Parade and Honeymoon in Vegas, Jason Robert Brown, comes the powerful and intimate musical, The Last Five Years, in concert for a special musical event. The presentation features Betsy Wolfe (star of A.C.T.'s Tales of the City, Broadway's The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Bullets Over Broadway) and Adam Kantor (Broadway's RENT and Next to Normal), the critically acclaimed original cast of the 2013 production at New York's Second Stage Theatre.

The Last Five Years tells the powerful story of Cathy and Jamie, two twenty-something New Yorkers who dive headfirst into a marriage fueled by the optimism that comes from finding "the one." But in a city where professional and personal passions collide and only the strongest relationships survive, navigating the waters of love and matrimony can sometimes prove to be daunting. Sung from their individual points of view, Cathy's journey is told from ending to beginning, and Jamie's from beginning to end. Funny, honest, and intimate, and with an exuberantly romantic score, The Last Five Years takes a bold look at one young couple's hope that love endures the test of time.

V.I.P. tickets are available for the Saturday 8 p.m. performance and include complimentary pre-show champagne and a special post-show dessert reception with the cast.

"A stunning score. From the melancholy music-box-style opening notes to the ironically upbeat finale, this is far and away [Jason Robert Brown's] finest work."—Entertainment Weekly

"A relentlessly revealing gem of a show...with jaw-dropping songs. Beautifully performed by Betsy Wolfe and Adam Kantor, who fill every daredevil leap and riff with torrents of feeling."—Vulture.com

★★★★ "Graceful, gripping and break-your-heart beautiful. The Last Five Years burrows into your skin by virtue of its very theatricality. Betsy Wolfe and Adam Kantor are simply irresistible! It's impossible not to swoon!"—New York Daily News

"One of the top 10 productions of 2013!"—Associated Press

Testament at ACT Theatre October 29 to November 23 2014

 

 

About Testament

Running time: 80 minutes with no intermission

“Beautiful and Daring”—The New York Times
“Electrifying…shatteringly, trenchantly human”—Bloomberg

Originally staged at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2011—and retitled for Broadway in 2013 as The Testament of Mary—Testament is an incisive, lyrical, and deeply human work that recounts in riveting detail a defiant mother's story of her son, who has been taken from her by men she regards as fanatics. Variety raved that “you’ve never seen anything like it,” and you won’t want to miss Canadian leading actor Seana McKenna (A.C.T.’s Napoli!) in this powerful, tour-de-force role.

MAJOR BARBA at ACT Theatre

 

A.C.T., near the corner of Geary and Mason (415 Geary St.San Francisco, CA 94102)

 

 

In this modern masterwork -- critically praised as a unique mix of Oscar Wilde and Bertolt Brecht -- the great Irish writer George Bernard Shaw pits a military industrialist against his crusading daughter. She's a Salvation Army major; he's an arms manufacturer and whiskey distiller -- on certain issues, they could not disagree more. But when he begins donating money to her organization, matters come to a head as the characters grapple with questions of business, faith, family and philanthropy. After 16 years, A.C.T. brings Shaw back to the stage with this co-production with Theatre Calgary, one of A.C.T.'s favorite Canadian collaborators, featuring an international cast of Canadian and American actors.