American Conservatory Theatre Features Mamet, Shepard, Ford, Fugard

"Right on the heels of our momentous 40th anniversary, we head into our 41st season with more ambition, energy, and excitement than ever," says Perloff. "From John Doyle's extraordinary re-imagining of Sweeney Todd, to John Ford's steamy and in-your-face masterpiece 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, to one of the great American love stories The Rainmaker, to the wham-bam antics of David Mamet in Speed-the-Plow, we've sought to offer a season of theatrical entertainment as diverse and arresting as possible. This is theater the likes of which you won't see on HBO or DVD--art that delivers the kinds of rewards that one gets only from being a live witness to it."

A.C.T.'s 41st season opens in August with John Doyle's Tony Award winning re-imagining of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's musical about the infamous barber of Fleet Street: Sweeney Todd. A West Coast premiere of the production that won Tony Awards for Doyle (best director of a musical) and orchestrator and music supervisor Sarah Travis (best orchestrations), Sweeney Todd features a multitalented cast of actors playing all the instruments onstage. John Doyle's Sweeney Todd is an exclusive engagement at A.C.T. before the production goes on a national tour.

The season continues in October with N. Richard Nash's radiantly hopeful heartland fable The Rainmaker, featuring A.C.T. core company actor René Augesen and directed by Mark Rucker (A.C.T.'s The Beard of Avon and A.C.T. and the Magic Theatre's Luminescence Dating). A.C.T. continues its strong recent track record with David Mamet (Sexual Perversity in Chicago, American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, and his adaptation of Granville-Barker's The Voysey Inheritance) with a revival of his bitingly funny Hollywood satire Speed-the-Plow.

The 41st anniversary season also features two very different explorations into the areas of politics and identity. February brings Athol Fugard's brave and masterful The Blood Knot to centerstage. One of Fugard's searing early works that explores the meaning of racial identity, The Blood Knot features A.C.T. core company actors Steven Anthony Jones and Jack Willis portraying brothers living together in 1960s Apartheid South Africa. And Carey Perloff directs Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector, an outrageous political satire about a small town's desperate government.

As attentions turn toward the spring harvest, A.C.T. presents the 30th anniversary revival of the darkly funny tale about the extreme measures taken by one farming family in Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class.

And the 41st season closes with a rare and boldly interpreted revival in Perloff's vigorous re-imagining of John Ford's poetic and potent Jacobean drama 'Tis Pity She's A Whore.

The season also features two non-subscription presentations of works first seen in A.C.T. First Look 2007 series: The Tosca Project-a dynamic blend of movement, poetry, and music toasting the rich history of Tosca's Café, the famed nightspot located in San Francisco's North Beach district-and José Rivera's surreal fable Brainpeople. Created by Carey Perloff and the SF Ballet's Val Caniparoli and directed by Perloff, the next work-in-progress presentation of The Tosca Project will be presented at the Forum at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts October 26, 27, and 28. Brainpeople will be presented as a full production at Zeum Theater January 26 through February 16.

The nonsubscription presentation of Carey Perloff and Paul Walsh's adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (December 5 through 23) returns during the holiday season, featuring new revisions and actor James Carpenter reprising his role as Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Season subscriptions are now available via the A.C.T. subscriptions office. For a season brochure, please call A.C.T. Ticket Services at 415.749.2250 or log on to www.act-sf.org. Single tickets for all of A.C.T.'s productions in the 2007-08 season will be available beginning August 5, 2007.

A.C.T. is supported in part by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts. -- www.act-sf.org