
ABOUT
It began as a
small meeting of friends...
ARC MISSION
Our mission is to share the artistic, spiritual, and emotional passion uniquely inherent to theater and storytelling.
​
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.
​
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.
​
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.
​
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.
​
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.
​
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.
​
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:
-
Admin Corps
-
BIPoC Affinity Group
-
Budget Committee
-
Casting Equity Committee
-
Commitee on Committees
-
Fundraising Committee
-
Grant Writing Committee
-
Inclusion Diversity Equity & Accessibility Committee
-
Literary Committee
-
Marketing & Publicity Committee
-
Production & Tech Training
-
Social Committee
-
Steering Commitee



g - L
Anne Hallinan
Bezachin Jifar
Lynne Kaufman
Amy Kossow
Isabel Langen
Michele Apriña Leavy
Danielle Levin
Gwen Loeb
Catherine Luedtke
Susan Lynskey
A - f
Mary E. Baird
Aldo Billingslea
Jennifer Bradford
Sylvia Burboeck
James Carpenter
Catherine Castellanos
Anthony Fusco
M - R
Tanya Marie
Dena Martinez
Leontyne Mbele-Mbong
Brady Morales-Woolery
Phoebe Moyer
Robert Parsons
Scott Ragle
Timothy Redmond
Cathleen Riddley
Brian Rivera
Stacy Ross
S - Z
Elizabeth Schrey
Luisa Sermol
David Sinaiko
Liz Sklar
Michael Gene Sullivan
Mia Tagano
Emilie Talbot
Danielle Thys
Ansley Valentine
Aaron Wilton
Michael Ray Wisely
contributing PLAYERS



F - L
Safiya Fredericks
Cindy Goldfield
Livia Gomes Demarchi
Ed Gonzalez-Moreno
Karina Gutiérrez
Dan Hiatt
Mick Hodder
Will Hoeschler
J Jha
Jeremy Kahn
Kina Kantor
Ayisha Knight-Shaw
Anne Yumi Kobori
Dean Koya
Jennifer Le Blanc
Amy Lizardo
A - E
Samuel Ademola
Rotimi Agbabiaka
Sofia Ahmad
Juan Amador
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
Sheila Devitt
Gianna DiGregorio Rivera
Julie Eccles
Edward Ewell
M - P
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
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
Musical 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.
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.
-
Donors are people who have made one time or recurring donations.
-
Subscribers are people who pay a monthly subscription for our ARC Streams.
ARC donors
Sofia Ahmad, Maria Baird, Renaldo Billingslea, Rufus Browning, Katherine Calvert, James Carpenter, Debbie Lynn Carriger, Elizabeth Carter, Bruce Colman, Narsai David, Susan Duncan, Pegeen Foley, Anthony Fusco, Fred Gertler, Sandy Gross, Brian Haughton, Tracy Haughton - recurring, Caroline Hornfeld, Matt Jacobson, Lynne Kaufman, Amy Kossow, Isabel Langen, Carol Lashof, Joan Lester, Jeffrey Lo, Gwen Loeb, Catherine Luedtke, Gail MacGowan, Lisa Mallette, Craig Moody, Peter Nachtrieb, Lawrence Nelson, Mary Noble, Steve Ortiz, Robert Parsons, Timothy Redmond, John Ruskin, Deborah Ruth, Katherine Sanderlin, Luisa Sermol, Meryl Shaw Coaching, David Sinaiko, Iris Stone, Emilie Talbot Brooks, Alison Teeman and Michael Yovino Young, David Woolbright, Jay Yamada
ARC subscribers
Joy Carlin, Carol Daeley, Narsai & Venus David, Krystyna Finlayson, Michaela Goldhaber, Robert Hale, Anne Hallinan, Cecily Martin, Helena Mbele-Mbong, Craig Moody, Madeline Puccioni, John Ruskin, Margaret Simmons, Colin Thomson, David Young