First in a series of interviews about how Bay Area theatres are coping with the Corona Virus shutdown.
Pam MacKinnon, Artistic Director of A.C.T., American Conservatory Theatre, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
Now in her third season as Artistic Director, Pam MacKinnon has had to rearrange her life (which was already in flux, still learning about her new home town of San Francisco) and the work of her organization in order to survive the complete shutdown of live theatre in America.
A noted theatre director before joining A.C.T., Pam MacKinnon won an Obie and then was nominated for a Tony on Broadway for Clybourne Park. A leading director of the works of Edward Albee, she won a Tony Award in 2013 for a revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. In the Bay Area, most notably, she directed Albee’s Seascape for ACT during the 2018-2019 season, and before that, directed the musical Amelie at Berkeley Rep.
In this interview, she discusses the changes A.C.T. was forced to make to deal with the shutdown, the rise of streaming, working with other companies, and coming up with new ways to survive the pandemic, including a host of streaming options at act-sf.org.
Front photo of A.C.T.’s Geary Theatre, from their website.