Goldstar

American master Edward Albee's (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) new spellbinder is a meticulously calibrated and brutal look at the lives of three New Yorkers. The story opens with Peter, a tweedy book editor, and his wife, Ann, whose everyday conversation takes an unexpected turn into dangerously personal territory. It's the kind of talk that can drive a husband out for a walk -- to Central Park, where Jerry, a desperate outcast, awaits. Learn more...

American Conservatory Theatre presents Obie Award-winning playwright José Rivera's Boleros for the Disenchanted. The first act is a subtle romantic comedy placed against the backdrop of 1950s Puerto Rico; the second act, set forty years later in America, explores the darker mysteries of marriage. Rachel Ticotin (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) and Robert Beltran (Star Trek: Voyager, Big Love) star. Learn more...

American Conservatory Theatre presents the world premiere of War Music. Based on poet Christopher Logue's translation of Homer's legendary Iliad, this wildly theatrical production fuses theatre, movement, and John Glover's original musical score to produce a passionate and visionary epic. Learn more...

Tony-winning Broadway star Judy Kaye stars in Souvenir at the American Conservatory Theater. Kaye earned a Tony nomination for her role in this hilarious and touching show, based on the story of Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York socialite and tone-deaf diva whose famously incompetent performances led her to cult figure status. Donald Corren plays her wry accompanist. Learn more...

American Conservatory Theater presents John Guare's Rich and Famous. This twisted, surreal musical comedy by the acclaimed author of Six Degrees of Separation and The House of Blue Leaves explores the travails of prolific but unsuccessful playwright Bing Ringling on Opening Night of his 844th play. Learn more...

A.C.T.'s A Christmas Carol is a Bay Area holiday tradition as beloved as the festive window displays around Union Square. Featuring nasty old Scrooge, adorable Tiny Tim, and a multigenerational cast of dozens, A Christmas Carol is a sparkling, music-infused celebration of goodwill that your family will never forget. Learn more...

American Conservatory Theater presents The Quality of Life, by Emmy Award-winning playwright/director Jane Anderson. This unforgettable drama tells the story of two couples confronting loss and survival in the face of explosive circumstance. The cast features Laurie Metcalf (Desperate Housewives, Roseanne) and JoBeth Williams (Poltergeist, The Big Chill). Learn more...

A decades-spanning tale of Prague's rock revolution, Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll follows the passions and politics of a Marxist professor in Cambridge and his Rolling Stones-obsessed protégé fighting for freedom in Soviet-dominated Prague. Nominated for four 2008 Tony Awards, Rock 'n' Roll features the music of the Stones and Pink Floyd. Learn more...

Tony and Olivier Award-winning actor Roger Rees stars in this very hysterical (somewhat historical) one-horsed gallop through all things Shakespearean. What You Will is the one-man everything there is "to be or not to be" about William Shakespeare: the greatest soliloquies ever written next to side-splitting accounts of the funniest disasters ever perpetrated on the stage. Learn more...

This rarely staged Jacobean tragedy pits the hot-blooded violation of a shocking taboo against the dirty machinations of a corrupt church and state. The result is passionate and poetic, violent and sardonic and a classic that is mordantly fresh. Starring Tony-nominated Michael Hayden and A.C.T.'s René Augesen, winner of a 2007 Bay Area Theatre Critics' Circle Award, and set to the virtuosic stylings of cellist-singer Bonfire Madigan Shive. Learn more...

A dark satire by Pulitzer Prize winner and Academy Award nominee Sam Shepard, Curse of the Starving Class is at once hilarious and profound, frighteningly true and delightfully surreal. The story follows a malnourished and rather bizarre family searching for freedom, security and their piece of the American pie. Learn more...

The Government Inspector is one part political parody, one part "Waiting for Guffman"--and scathingly funny through-and-through. This famous ensemble comedy by Nikolai Gogol plays out in a backwater Russian village, where government leaders and local cronies are willing to give a visiting official money, women, and whatever else he wants...but are they even bribing the right man? Learn more...

A.C.T.'s new production of Athol Fugard's breakthrough play, which first opened in 1961, holds a mirror up to the soul-searing effects of racism while exploring the inextricable bond between brothers trapped in the madness of apartheid South Africa. Learn more...

Movie exec Bobby Gould's best buddy has just pitched him a crass action flick that's a surefire blockbuster. But Gould's gorgeous new secretary is pushing a "conscience" film--and she's got after-hours access that could sway his green light. Who's the real showbiz player? With biting comedy and fast-and-furious dialogue, Speed-the-Plow is Hollywood as only David Mamet can deliver. Learn more...

The Rainmaker centers on the charismatic huckster Starbuck, who travels the heartland selling snake oil and other dubious miracle cures. At the drought-stricken Curry farm, Starbuck promises to make it rain--for a price. But when he and Lizzie, the lone daughter of the family, discover a genuine chemistry, they begin to consider the possibility of a real miracle. Learn more...

The hit Broadway revival of Sondheim's chilling musical arrives at A.C.T.. In this visionary, reimagined production, the legendary demon barber of Fleet Street still serves up his justice vigilante-style, but with an edgier, stripped-down staging. The result delivers an intimate, thrilling evening of theater with naughty humor and infectious melodies. Learn more...

The violently funny, perpetually soused duo Kiki and Herb: Alive From Broadway takes San Francisco this summer. No one is safe from the biting tongue of the ungracefully aging "boozy chanteusie," Kiki, and her long-suffering accompanist, Herb, in the celebrated lounge act that sold out Carnegie Hall and brought Broadway to its knees. Rowdily reinterpreting music from Scissor Sisters, The Cure, Public Enemy, and more, Kiki and Herb "blur the line of incoherent and brilliant." (Village Voice) Learn more...

In this cheeky satire, an old hypochondriac believes in nothing and no one--except the dubious diagnoses his quack doctors keep delivering. A.C.T.'s new production of The Imaginary Invalid offers a hysterical exposé of society's childlike devotion to staying "well"--and a prescription for a rollicking good time. Learn more...

One night only! Brian Copeland's solo show reveals a little-known chapter of Bay Area history. In 1971, San Leandro was considered by fair housing advocates to be one of the most racist suburbs in America. The next year, then eight-year-old Brian Copeland and his African-American family moved into town. The Contra Costa Times calls his show a "wildly funny, agonizingly heart-wrenching presentation . . . a jewel." Learn more...

Steven Culp (Desperate Housewives, The West Wing) stars in the west-coast premiere of Olivier Award-winning Blackbird, a powerful drama that explores the outer limits of morality and sexual desire. A man is confronted by the woman with whom he had an illicit affair, bringing into question the ways in which the past impacts the present. Learn more...

Comedy commences at A.C.T. with the 11th annual Comedy Night! The evening begins with a swinging soiree, including no-host bar, in Fred's lounge, located on the lower level of A.C.T. Then the comics take the stage for an evening of uncontrollable laughter. The line-up includes Doug Benson, Marc Maron, Joe Klocek, Roy Zimmerman and Mishna Wolff. Learn more...

When more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned by the U.S. government during WWII, San Francisco's busy Japantown became a ghost town. Other societal outcasts began to fill the neighborhood -- but what happened when the Japanese Americans came back? This world premiere play shows an unexpected grouping of characters struggling to revive a community shattered by the effects of war. Learn more...

Who is Hedda Gabler? Is the beautiful bride a victim or a villain? Is she a pistol-packing "new woman" or the demure last gasp of a dying social order? A.C.T. brings to life Ibsen's tragic, complex study of one of the most compelling and contradictory women in dramatic literature. Learn more...

With class, brassiness, and wit, The Circle is W. Somerset Maugham's sly send-up of marriage, the leisure class, and the notion that young lovers ever learn. Vivacious Lady Kitty returns to the town she fled with her lover just in time to witness her daughter-in-law dismantling her own marriage, much as Kitty did years ago. Will Kitty be able to encourage her son's marriage to persist, or will she only add fuel to the fire? Learn more...

A.C.T.'s A Christmas Carol is a Bay Area holiday tradition as beloved as the festive window displays around Union Square. Featuring nasty old Scrooge, adorable Tiny Tim and a host of beloved characters, A.C.T.'s A Christmas Carol is a sparkling, music-infused celebration of good will that your family will never forget. Learn more...

Lillian Hellman, one of the American theatre's most provocative and masterful playwrights, continues to exert a captivating hold on American culture. The Little Foxes reveals Hellman's unrivaled ability to create some of the meatiest roles in the modern canon. This unforgettable classic tells the story of the scheming Hubbards and their single-minded pursuit of wealth. In this family, the only thing that runs thicker than blood is cold, hard cash. Learn more...

Imagine if James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin, and Tristan Tzara all happened to be living in the neutral oasis of Zurich, Switzerland during World War I. From that historical premise, Tony and Academy award-winner Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love) presents Travesties. Travesties throws the three geniuses together in the same research library, adds a dash of irony, a pinch of romantic intrigue, a generous helping of Oscar Wilde references, and voila! With this delightful riff on the skittish friendship between art and revolution, Stoppard takes viewers inside the wildest minds of the 20th century for an absurd, funny, smart and romantic romp. Learn more...

Gangsters collide with Salvation Army workers in this colorful musical tale of love and betrayal. A.C.T. presents Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's landmark musical Happy End, a jolly escapist romp with an acid undercurrent. Combining social satire with music-hall moxie, Happy End showcases a mythical 1920s Chicago packed with oversized personalities, financial corruption and some of the greatest songs of twentieth-century theater, including "Surabaya Johnny" and "The Bilbao Song." Learn more...

American Conservatory Theater presents the gripping new drama A Number, starring Josh Charles ("Sports Night," Four Brothers, Dead Poets Society) and Bill Smitrovich ("24," HBO's Mrs. Harris, "Life Goes On"). In A Number, a man is confronted by three of his grown sons when they discover that they are replicates--human clones cut from identical genetic cloth with drastically differing results. As each son in turn seeks the truth behind his genesis, A Number tackles with chilling grace the unsettling question of individualism. Learn more...

A delicious classic that delights in its own idiosyncrasies, The Rivals rewrote the history of comedy and the English dictionary with the help of the famously misspoken Mrs. Malaprop. You'll be pleased as lunch to spend an evening in the company of darling Mrs. M. and her erroneous vocabulary, plummeting to new heights of hilarity with this ultimate cast of comedic characters as they look for love. Learn more...

A Tony Award nominee for best play in 2005, August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean comes to the American Conservatory Theater. Set in 1904, Gem of the Ocean begins on the eve of Aunt Esther's 287th birthday. When Citizen Barlow comes to her Pittsburg's Hill District home seeking asylum, she sets him off on a spiritual journey to find a city in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Learn more...

Outrageously funny and provocative, this play was the spark that ignited David Mamet's firecracker career. In this new production from American Conservatory Theatre, twentysomethings look for love and companionship in a predatory world filled with grandstanding, game-playing, and manipulation. Learn more...

American Conservatory Theater's sparkling new production of A Christmas Carol returns to the Geary Theater completely revamped--new script, new songs, larger-than-life costumes, and fantastic sets. Check your "humbugs" at the door and celebrate the Bay Area's favorite holiday tradition. Learn more...

In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a southern family's simmering secrets rise to the surface as the family gathers to bid a final happy birthday to their ailing Big Daddy. Tennessee Williams' sultry Pulitzer Prize-winning play celebrates its 50th anniversary on stage at the Geary Theater. Learn more...

Funny, sad and exhilarating, the international hit The Overcoat integrates 22 actors, moving music, a two-story mechanical set, and more than 85 costumes. It is the story of a simple man whose life takes on a brilliant glow when he gets a fashionable new coat, but his desire to be accepted may have dark consequences. Learn more...

In an exclusive Bay Area engagement, Tovah Feldshuh recreates her award-winning performance as Golda Meir, the Milwaukee schoolteacher who became Prime Minister of Israel in 1969. Golda's Balcony, written by William Gibson (The Miracle Worker), holds the record for the longest-running one-woman play on Broadway. Learn more...

Tovah Feldshuh recreates her award-winning performance as Golda Meir in Golda's Balcony, a play by William Gibson (The Miracle Worker), in an exclusive Bay Area engagement at the Geary Theater. Learn more...

From Edward Albee, one of the stage's greatest writers, comes this controversial, award-winning play about a man at the pinnacle of success who is forced to risk his marriage, his career and his life by confessing to his family his extramarital affairs. This new production from A.C.T. marks the return of Albee to the Geary stage for the first time in over 30 years. Learn more...

A.C.T. presents Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, featuring Emmy-nominated actress Robin Weigert (currently raising hell as Calamity Jane on the HBO hit Deadwood), at the Geary Theater. Learn more...

Crime doesn't pay--or does it? When a con makes you rich, life gets a lot more complicated. The Voysey Inheritance, adapted by David Mamet, is a witty, impeccably crafted portrait of a family in the midst of a surprisingly modern moral dilemma. Learn more...

See the West Coast premiere of the hit off-Broadway production Well, hailed by The New York Times, the Associated Press and the Star-Ledger as one of 2004's best productions! Well is a comical and brazen deconstruction of theater and wellness, and writer Lisa Kron's attempts to understand them both. Learn more...

San Francisco's acclaimed A.C.T. presents this saucy farce about a compulsive gambler: The Gamester at the Geary Theatre. The stakes are high and the deck isn't the only thing that's stacked! Learn more...

The Bay Area Holiday Tradition, featuring A.C.T. core acting company member Steven Anthony Jones as Scrooge, Dickens's classic returns to the Geary Theater to warm your heart. Reintroduce yourself and those you love to the season's most enduring story of hope, triumph, and transformation. Learn more...

The Real Thing continues A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff's ongoing collaboration with Stoppard, who considers A.C.T. his "American home." Intelligent, accessible, and genuinely heartfelt, The Real Thing looks at love with the fresh, incisive perspective that only a true master of the English language can provide. Learn more...

From the creator of The V**ina Monologues comes the world premiere of a play about the rest of us: Obie Award-winning playwright Eve Ensler's The Good Body, presented by ACT at the Geary Theater. Learn more...

Academy award-winning actress Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck, Steel Magnolias) returns to delight audiences in this newly-commissioned work for A.C.T.: A Mother at the Geary Theater. Learn more...

The ACT proudly presents the Steppenwolf Theatre Company's acclaimed production of William Saroyan's The Time Of Your Life, which recently received the Chronicle's highest rating! Learn more...

Levee James, a potent and poetic love story set in the 1920s, performed by the acclaimed American Conservatory Theater. Learn more...

Singer/pianist/comedian Mark Nadler lights up the Geary stage with Tschaikowsky (and Other Russians), his dizzying and hilarious cabaret show! Learn more...