ARC MISSION
Our mission is to share the artistic, spiritual, and emotional passion uniquely inherent to theater and storytelling.
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ARC is actor-inspired, -shaped and -driven: a collective molded by our mutual efforts and member input. We’re deeply committed to changing the way BIPOC members are cast, and practice gender and age inclusion in an attempt to move our mutual humanity forward, to listen to what is needed, and what is lacking. We challenge ourselves to change.
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Our goal is to help support our members, many of whom have been severely impacted by the Covid-19
Pandemic with loss of jobs, funds, and health insurance, through this crisis and beyond. Through our streaming channel, we seek to reach a larger audience for our readings and to present some of it for local theaters and Arts organizations, thereby creating opportunity, and providing a space for collaboration and potential.
ARC HISTORY
When the Pandemic began and theaters shuttered in the San Francisco Bay Area, closed all over the globe, artists worldwide lost in one stroke, their platforms, their stages. We lost our voices, identities and jobs overnight with no hope of potential stage work for an indeterminate amount of time. This group was born out of a reaction to that sudden silencing of our voices and our mutual need to tell stories, our mutual love of words, of Theatre and our need to gather and celebrate each other and the craft we love. It began as a small meeting of friends reading plays on Thursdays at Seven, and has since grown to many members boasting an impressive roster of new generation and well-known Bay Area actors committed to telling stories and to supporting our fellow professionals.
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With no boards to tread, our solution was not to try to recreate theatre online, but rather to distill our readings down to the simplest and purest form of Theatre there is: the playwright's words. We challenged ourselves to tell a story with no rehearsal. We gave ourselves five days with a script—sometimes less—in an attempt to create a one-time, immediate and visceral experience. In the deft hands of the actors in our group these stories have blossomed to life for us and others in unexpected ways, and captivated us, experienced theatre professionals, with their beauty and simplicity.
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Out of these Thursdays at Seven, was born the Actors' Reading Collective (ARC): our performance group created to present our readings to the public, with that same focus on the essence of the theatre: words spoken without frills or furbelows. Simply ARC—a company of actors, by actors, for actors.
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With the size of our group we can perform any play written. With the range of actors we have, we can fill any role. We can perform plays not seen or heard in years because they’re too expensive or unwieldy and investigate again old works of note that theaters today no longer attempt.
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Though we are primarily San Francisco Bay Area actors, we include members from all over the country. We charge no membership fees for our service and we voluntarily lend our free time and efforts to make this cooperative a working venture.
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What became of our Thursdays at Seven reading group? Oh, we still meet. There we read plays we don’t know, read plays we know and love, and explore new Playwrights' works. We invite guests but don’t market these readings. These are for us.
arc PLAYERS
ARC COLLECTIVE MEMBERS
Collective Members are helping steer the Collective by serving on one or more of the following committees:
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Admin Corps
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BIPoC Affinity Group
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Budget Committee
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Casting Equity Committee
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Commitee on Committees
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Fundraising Committee
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Grant Writing Committee
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Inclusion Diversity Equity & Accessibility Committee
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Literary Committee
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Marketing & Publicity Committee
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Production & Tech Training
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Social Committee
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Steering Commitee
g - L
Anne Hallinan
Amy Kossow
Michele Apriña Leavy
Danielle Levin
Gwen Loeb
Catherine Luedtke
A - f
Mary E. Baird
Aldo Billingslea
Jennifer Bradford
James Carpenter
Catherine Castellanos
Ron Chapman
Sheila Devitt
M - R
Tanya Marie
Leontyne Mbele-Mbong
Brady Morales-Woolery
Lisa Morse
Phoebe Moyer
Robert Parsons
Timothy Redmond
Stacy Ross
S - Z
Luisa Sermol
David Sinaiko
Michael Gene Sullivan
Emilie Talbot
Ansley Valentine
Michael Ray Wisely
contributing PLAYERS
E - K
Julie Eccles
Edward Ewell
Safiya Fredericks
Anthony Fusco
Cindy Goldfield
Livia Gomes Demarchi
Ed Gonzalez-Moreno
Karina Gutiérrez
Dan Hiatt
Mick Hodder
Will Hoeschler
J Jha
Bez Jifar
Jeremy Kahn
Kina Kantor
Ayisha Knight-Shaw
Anne Yumi Kobori
Dean Koya
A - d
Samuel Ademola
Rotimi Agbabiaka
Sofia Ahmad
Juan Amador
Andre Amaratico
Rinabeth Apostol
Francisco Arcila
Michael J. Asberry
Michael Barrett Austin
Chris Ayles
Wilma Bonet
Velina Brown
Natalie Camunas
Hugo Carbajal
Joy Carlin
Amy Carpenter
Tristan Cunningham
Will Dao
Gianna DiGregorio Rivera
L - P
Jennifer Le Blanc
Amy Lizardo
Susan Lynskey
Adam Magill
Ash Malloy
Julia McNeal
David Everett Moore
Carolina Morones
Lisa Morse
Alicia Piemme Nelson
Jenny Nguyen Nelson
Sarita Ocón
Tony Ortega
Carrie Paff
Carla Pantoja
Mozart Pierson
Marcia Pizzo
R - Z
Brian Rivera
Martín Rojas Dietrich
Terrance Smith
Iris Stone
Jomar Tagatac
Sango Tajima
Michelle Talgarow
Alixandra Todd
Michael Torres
Brenda Vivian
Valerie Weak
special thanks
Craig Moody
arc pARTNERS
Actors' Reading Collective sometimes collaborates with other theater companies to get our readings out to you.
OUR FISCAL SPONSOR
New Performance Traditions is a hub for incubating multi-disciplinary arts projects from conception and production through performance, recording, and broadcast. We are dedicated to the creation of risk-taking and challenging performing artworks and to supporting the artists that conceive them in order to engender a more equitable, inclusive,
and creative community.
Marin Shakespeare Company is Playing for Good, providing leading edge programs that catalyze engagement - in our community and nationwide – about the most defining issues of our time. Social justice is at the core of all we do. Our theatre aims a spotlight on injustice, the demand for equity, and the urgent need for change.
Born during the pandemic, but with an eye trained on the future, Remote Studios is a collective of playwrights, directors, composers, and actors, pioneering the boundaries of live performance. We’re committed to developing and reimagining great dramatic works and finding global audiences for them, while pioneering the art of “live global cinema.” Past and current partners include
the Playwrights Foundation and
the Actors' Reading Collective.
arc supporters
Actors' Reading Collective is grateful to the generous folks who have donated to our efforts.
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Donors are people who have made one time or recurring donations.
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Subscribers are people who pay a monthly subscription for our ARC Streams.
ARC donors
Sofia Ahmad, John Bain-Chekal, Maria Baird, Marguerite Barron, Judith A Bebelaar, Renaldo Billingslea, Rufus Browning, Dan-Xia Bossard, Katherine Calvert, James Carpenter, Debbie Lynn Carriger, Elizabeth Carter, Glenn Clark, Bruce Colman, Narsai David, Susan Duncan, Krystyna Finlayson, Pegeen Foley, Anthony Fusco, Fred Gertler, Mme Gobert, Sandy Gross, Richard Hale, Brian Haughton, Tracy Haughton - recurring, Caroline Hornfeld, William Horton, Matt Jacobson, Lynne Kaufman, Phillipa Kelly and Paul Dresher, Amy Kossow, Isabel Langen, Carol Lashof, Joan Lester, Jeffrey Lo, Gwen Loeb, Catherine Luedtke, Gail MacGowan, Lisa Mallette, Helena & Samuel Mbele-Mbong, Adin Miller, Craig Moody, Peter Nachtrieb, Lawrence Nelson, Mary Noble, Fred Norton, Steve Ortiz, Peter Ouborg, Robert Parsons, Timothy Redmond, Patricia Reidenbach, John Ruskin, Deborah Ruth, Katherine Sanderlin, Luisa Sermol, Lucy Smallreed, Meryl Shaw Coaching, David Sinaiko, Iris Stone, Mary Stuttard, Gordon and Emilie Talbot Brooks, Alison Teeman and Michael Yovino Young, Vea Van Kessel, Megan Welch, JoAnne Winter, David Woolbright, Jay Yamada
ARC subscribers
Joy Carlin, Carol Daeley, Narsai & Venus David, Krystyna Finlayson, Robert Hale, Anne Hallinan, Cecily Martin, Craig Moody, Madeline Puccioni, John Ruskin, Margaret Simmons, Colin Thomson