A.C.T.’s 2023/24 season includes the world premiere of the pre-Broadway musical Hippest Trip — The Soul Train Musical; the world premiere of Kate Attwell’s Big Data; Kristina Wong’s award–winning solo show, Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord; and the National Theatre and Neal Street Productions’ international theatrical sensation, The Lehman Trilogy.
The Bay Area’s favorite holiday tradition, A Christmas Carol, returns in 2023 for the last time in its current version; A.C.T. will present a brand-new production of Dickens’s timeless story of redemption in 2024.
“We cannot wait to welcome audiences into the 2023/24 season as we continue gathering together to celebrate, laugh, and learn from these amazing productions,” said Executive Director Jennifer Bielstein. “The best way the Bay Area community can support the arts is by attending performances. Whether you’re an avid A.C.T. theatergoer or a newcomer, we offer a wide range of ticket packages and opportunities that fit your needs and support our mission.”
Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical
The wait is finally over! Get ready for “the hippest trip in America” with the world premiere of Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical, the Broadway-bound musical based on the iconic TV show that brought Black music, dance, and style into every living room in America. Journey back to 1971’s Chicago, when Black entrepreneur and radio DJ Don Cornelius transformed the pop culture landscape by recognizing the lack of Black musical artists on television. Within a year, his local dance show went national and became one of the longest-running shows in television history. Elegant, determined, and complicated, Cornelius set trends for nearly 40 years by giving a stage—and a camera—to the artists who created the soundtrack of multiple generations, and to the dancers, including Rosie Perez and Jody Watley, who became superstars.
A Christmas Carol
Featuring a lively cast of dozens, delightful music, gorgeous costumes, and those deliciously spooky ghosts, the Bay Area’s favorite holiday tradition returns home. This version of A Christmas Carol—adapted by Paul Walsh and Carey Perloff—stays true to the heart of Dickens’s timeless story of redemption and brings a playful sensibility to his rich language. A Christmas Carol is a decades-long cornerstone of the A.C.T. repertory and has become a holiday tradition for families all around the San Francisco Bay Area.
This will be your final chance to see this version of A Christmas Carol, one that has enchanted audience members like you for almost two decades. There will be a new version of A Christmas Carol in 2024—more on that soon. For now, don’t miss your chance to say farewell to this version of a classic.
Big Data
Sam loves Timmy, and Lucy loves Max, but the pressures of modern life leave them anxious, lonely, and susceptible to the siren song of tech. Do our devices—tantalizingly incarnate in this funny, sexy, uncanny world premiere—really know us best? Are our digital footprints predictive of our future choices, or are they choosing for us? When Sam and Lucy’s parents make a shocking announcement, the family is forced to confront what’s distracted them from each other—and the legacy they’ll leave behind. A.C.T.’s Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon and playwright Kate Attwell reunite to realize this revolutionary piece, inspired by Attwell’s experience touring Mozilla’s “Glass Room” pop-up interactive exhibit in San Francisco. Come explore questions of attention, connection, nourishment, and the dizzying possibilities of AI.
Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord
On Day 3 of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kristina Wong began sewing masks out of old bedsheets and bra straps on her Hello Kitty sewing machine. Before long, she was leading the Auntie Sewing Squad, a work-from-home sweatshop of hundreds of volunteers—including children and her own mother—to fix the U.S. public health care system while in quarantine. It was a feminist care utopia forming in the midst of crisis. Or was it a mutual aid doomsday cult? The answer to that question is something you’ll have to decide for yourself as Kristina takes you through this capital-H-Hilarious journey in this Pulitzer finalist play.
The Lehman Trilogy
The National Theatre and Neal Street Productions’ The Lehman Trilogy comes to San Francisco and A.C.T., following sold-out seasons in London and a highly lauded run on Broadway, winning five Tony Awards® including Best Play.
Directed by Academy Award®, Tony Award®, and Golden Globe winner Sam Mendes, The Lehman Trilogy features a cast of three playing the Lehman brothers, their sons, and grandsons, in an extraordinary feat of storytelling told in three parts on a single evening. Hailed by The New York Times as “a genuinely epic production,” The Lehman Trilogy is the story of a family and a company that changed the world.