A.C.T. Hosts Memorial for Edward Hastings, 1/22

American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) will host a memorial for the late Edward Hastings, who was one of the company's original members and served as A.C.T.'s second artistic director from 1986 to 1992. The event will take place on Sunday, January 22, 2012, at 7 p.m., on the stage of the American Conservatory Theater (415 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA).

Family, friends, and colleagues from around the country will come together in San Francisco to celebrate the life of Hastings, who passed away on July 5, 2011, at his Santa Fe home. George Hastings, brother of Edward Hastings, will be in attendance. Speakers will include many beloved faces from A.C.T.'s past and present: A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff, former A.C.T. company members René Auberjonois, Joy Carlin, Barbara Dirickson, and Anna Deavere Smith; celebrated A.C.T. directors Paul Blake and Tom Moore; former A.C.T. casting director Geoff Johnson; and award-winning playwright Philip Kan Gotanda. Former A.C.T. company member Deborah May and current A.C.T. core Acting Company member Manoel Felciano will perform songs. The event is open to the public. For more information, please visit www.act-sf.org/hastings or call 415.749.2228.

"We want to come together to celebrate Ed's artistry, his passion for American theater, his devotion to actor training, his generosity to small and untested theater groups whom he unfailingly supported, his deep love for and commitment to A.C.T., and the great joy he took in artistic collaboration," says A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff. "This will be a beautiful opportunity to hear from many of the people whose lives Ed touched, and to express our collective gratitude for all he brought to San Francisco and to the American theater."

Hastings was one of the A.C.T.'s original members and also served as executive director under founder William Ball. His tenure as artistic director at A.C.T. marked a commitment to new plays, emerging playwrights, and diversity. Hastings, along with then–production manager James Haire and then–managing director John Sullivan, was responsible for keeping A.C.T. open following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, when the company temporarily lost its permanent theater due to damage from the disaster. Hastings, Haire, and Sullivan worked tirelessly to secure different venues around San Francisco to continue the company's ambitious production schedule.
Along with his administrative duties, Hastings was a celebrated director, and he helmed 30 productions in his 25 years in San Francisco. When Ball resigned in 1986, there was general consensus that A.C.T.'s second artistic director should be someone familiar with the organization and its history: it was unanimously agreed that that person was Hastings. Although he had resigned as the company's executive director a few years earlier, he had maintained his ties to A.C.T. as a director. As artistic director, he reinstated A.C.T.'s commitment to large-scale, large-cast productions (beginning his first full season with the celebrated Laird Williamson production of Sunday in the Park with George).

Hastings was best known as a champion for the development of new plays, which continues to be a significant part of A.C.T.'s mission to this day. The Plays in Progress program he founded in 1972 staged full public productions of new works (most by emerging playwrights) in smaller venues. The program not only provided young playwrights with an invaluable opportunity, but also gave students in A.C.T.'s Advanced Training Program the experience of working alongside members of The Acting Company. This method of training by performing alongside master actors remains a significant part of the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program's curriculum today.
A staunch supporter of diversity at A.C.T., Hastings was committed to presenting a wide range of work on the mainstage. Under his leadership, A.C.T. presented its first major work by an African American playwright, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which began A.C.T's close relationship with playwright August Wilson. In addition to starting two longstanding artistic diversity programs at A.C.T., the Black Actors Workshop and the Asian American Theatre Workshop (which has since become the Asian American Theatre Company), he offered free admission for African American and Asian American actors to A.C.T.'s Advanced Training Program to support the diversification of acting talent in the American theater. Hastings was also a proponent of international exchange. During his time at A.C.T., he was a teacher at the Shanghai Drama Institute as part of the Theater Bridge Program between A.C.T. and the Shanghai theater; his production of All the Way Home was presented in Tokyo; he directed the Australian premiere of Hot l Baltimore; and he restaged his A.C.T. production of Sam Shepard's Buried Child in Serbo-Croatian at the Yugoslav Dramatic Theatre in Belgrade.

After leaving A.C.T., Hastings continued to work as a respected director of classics, new plays, and operas around the country and internationally. He is survived by his longtime partner, Eugene Barcone.

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