Complete Casting Announced For ACT Production of 'Rock'; Plans to Move to Boston

American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) launches its 2008-09 Season with Tom Stoppard's critically acclaimed Rock 'n' Roll in a West Coast premiere directed by Artistic Director Carey Perloff, who has had a celebrated artistic partnership with Stoppard for over a decade. A rapturous, decades-spanning tale of Prague's rock revolution, Rock 'n' Roll follows the passions and politics of a Marxist professor in Cambridge and his Rolling Stones-obsessed protégé fighting for freedom in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.

The A.C.T and Huntington Theatre Company coproduction marks the first presentation of Stoppard's play by an American company after the Broadway run of the London production that broke box office records and received four 2008 Tony Award nominations. Rock 'n' Roll blends Stoppard's signature use of language and ideas with the raw energy of rock music to become his most personal work to date.

The cast will feature

Rock 'n' Roll plays at A.C.T. September 11 through October 12, 2008. Press nights are Wednesday, September 17, 2008, at 8p.m. and Thursday, September 18, 2008, at 8p.m. Tickets-starting at $17-are available by calling A.C.T. Ticket Services at 415.749.2228, or at www.act-sf.org.

"I have felt indebted to A.C.T. audiences and to Carey's beautiful productions of my work for many years," says Stoppard, who will visit San Francisco to see the production during its run." I think Rock 'n' Roll will feel at home in Geary Street."

Stoppard, who was born to a Jewish family in Zlín, Czechoslovakia, fled his homeland in 1939 with his family. At the age of six, after the death of his father, he moved to England when his mother married an English colonel. "This play was clearly inspired by Stoppard's own childhood," says Perloff, "asking the question, What would have happened if, after the war, instead of staying in England and being raised there as an English schoolboy, he had gone back to Prague? But of course, the play is also much more than that. Stoppard asks: What is our relationship as individual people to these enormous shifts in history? Where do artists change the direction of history?"

Perloff adds: "What is particularly wonderful about doing Rock 'n' Roll at A.C.T. is that it fits our core Acting Company so beautifully, which has pleasEd Stoppard enormously, since he has enjoyed collaborating with them so much over the years." This coproduction with Boston's Huntington Theatre Company will transfer to Boston with A.C.T. core Acting Company members in November. San Franciscoborn and Tony Award-nominated actor and musician Manoel Felciano (Toby in the Broadway production of Sweeney Todd) makes his Bay Area debut as Jan, the rock-and-roll-obsessed Czech graduate student at the center of the play. This music-laced play will be an appropriate homecoming for Felciano, who started his musical career at the age of four and spent his early youth working at the legendary vinyl store Recycled Records on Haight Street before moving to New York to pursue a career in music and theater.

Joining Felciano are local powerhouses and A.C.T. core Acting Company members René Augesen, Anthony Fusco, Jud Williford, and Jack Willis. Rock 'n' Roll also marks the mainstage debut of two A.C.T. M.F.A. Program third-year students Nicholas Pelczar and Natalie Hegg. Rounding out the cast are James Carpenter, Delia MacDougall, Marcia Pizzo, and Summer Serafin.

An enthusiast of rock-and-roll music, Stoppard has weaved through the play a formidable collection of tunes that have not only defined American culture, but have also inspired the significant cultural, political, and social changes that reshaped many ex-Communist countries, including Czechoslovakia. Starting from the everything-is-possible world of the '60s and spanning three decades of political and social unrest, Rock 'n' Roll explores the unique intersection of politics and art and provides Stoppard's most poignant and personal look at political and cultural change. Along with the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and many of the most influential bands of the last 40 years, the play focuses on the groundbreaking Czech rock band The Plastic People of the Universe. The incarceration of the Plastic People by the Communist authorities instigated Czech writers, musicians, and artists to form the now world-famous human rights petition Charter 77, which was the precursor to the national revolution that occurred 12 years later.

The creative team for Rock 'n' Roll includes scenic designer Douglas W. Schmidt (Travesties at A.C.T., as well revivals of 42nd Street and Into the Woods on Broadway), lighting designer Robert Wierzel ('Tis Pity She's a Whore at A.C.T.), costume designer Alex Jaeger (Two Sisters and a Piano at The Public Theater, NYC), and resident Sound Design Associate Jake Rodriguez as sound designer.

A.C.T.'s production of Rock 'n' Roll is made possible by Comerica Bank Wealth & Institutional Management and donors to The Next Generation Campaign, with additional support by JW Marriot. A.C.T. would also like to thank lead sponsors Roberta B. Bialek and Burt and Deedee McMurtry; executive producers David and Susan Coulter, Mimi Haas, Ian and Rita Isaacs, and Chris and Leslie Johnson; producers Lucia Brandon and Bert W. Steinberg, Phil and Christine Bronstein, Drs. Caroline Emmett and Russell Rydel, Rose Hagan and Mark Lemley, Kent and Jeanne Harvey, Phil and Gloria Horsley, Nion T. McEvoy, Doug Tilden, and Anita Yu and Steve Westly; and associate producers Mr. Paul Angelo, Robert Hulteng, Judy and Bob Huret, Jeri Lynn and Jeffrey Johnson, Bruce and Naomi Mann, Mr. Paul Mariano and Ms. Suzanne Chapot, Virginia Patterson, Rick and Cindy Simons, and Paul and Barbara Weiss.

Tickets for Rock 'n' Roll can be purchased by visiting A.C.T. Ticket Services, located at 405 Geary Street, by calling 415.749.2228; or via the A.C.T. website at www.act-sf.org. Groups of 15 or more people are eligible for discounts; please call 415.439.2473

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