American Conservatory Theater

Geary Theater
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
San Francisco Designated Landmark #82
Facade detail of Geary Theater
Location	415 Geary St., San Francisco, California
Area	0.5 acres (0.20 ha)
Built	1910
Architectural style	Classical Revival, Late Victorian
NRHP Reference #	75000472
SFDL #	82
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	May 27, 1975
Designated SFDL	1976

American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) is a large non-profit theater company in San Francisco, California, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions, as well as being an acting school.

A.C.T. was founded in 1965 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Playhouse and Carnegie Mellon University by theatre and opera director William Ball. By invitation from San Francisco philanthropists and officials, Ball relocated the company to San Francisco and astonished the theatre world by presenting twenty-seven fully staged productions in rotating repertory, in two different theatres, the Geary and the Marine's Memorial Theatre, during the first 40-week season. San Francisco Chronicle critic Paine Knickerbocker acclaimed Ball's opening performance of Molière's Tartuffe as "a screaming, bellowing unbelievable triumph."

A.C.T.'s original twenty-seven member acting company featured the talents of René Auberjonois, Peter Donat, Richard Dysart, Michael Learned, Ruth Kobart, Paul Shenar, Charles Siebert, Ken Ruta, and Kitty Winn among many others. Ball's mid-1970s productions of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, starring Marc Singer, and Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Peter Donat and Marsha Mason were televised by PBS and are available on video.