Of the historic soaring buildings surrounding Union Square, the American Conservatory Theater is among the grandest and most storied. The theater's majestic golden ceiling has reigned over some of the most vivid and spellbinding performances in the Bay Area. A.C.T.'s reputation as an innovative national powerhouse is bolstered by a legacy of dazzling American premieres, including the Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs collaboration The Black Rider and last year's smash success, Brief Encounter.

This January, A.C.T. opens 2011 with the West Coast premiere of Clybourne Park, one of the most incisive, intelligent works of major contemporary theater. A direct reaction to Lorraine Hansberry's seminal 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun, Bruce Norris's Clybourne Park, here directed by local legend Jonathan Moscone, wriggles and wrests its way through some of the intricate, uncomfortable problems of modern American life. The play opens in 1959, as a white couple grapples with the ramifications of selling their home to a black family in a middle-class white Chicago neighborhood. In Act II, the action leaps fifty years to the present, where the debate—with repartee as hilarious as it is scathing—is eerily familiar.

Enjoy a complimentary cocktail in one of two A.C.T. lounges, marvel at the stage from the premiere or mezzanine section, and experience a "damningly insightful new comedy" (New York Times) sure to ride home with you even after the curtain goes down.

Note: Performances on January 27th and February 1st, 3rd, and 6th will feature open post-show discussions and debates with members of the cast and local experts in fields and topics relevant to the show. Please join!

"A spiky and damningly insightful new comedy." - Benjamin Brantley, New York Times
Read the review.

"Completely audacious, architecturally ingenious entertainment" - Melissa Rose Bernardo, Entertainment Weekly
Read the review.

"Superb, elegantly written, and hilarious" - John Lahr, New Yorker
Read the review.