TACT, The Actors Company Theater, is a group of known professionals - including Kevin Conway, John Cunningham, Paul Hecht, Larry Keith, as well as celebrated guest stars -- stripping down the theatrical experience to its essence: the words, the actors, and the audience. The company was formed in 1992 by actors who wanted to perform without the stringent demands of Broadway. The first production was Twelfth Night. It soon became obvious that, though well-received, their plays were having the same problem that too often plagues Broadway -- lack of money.
"Doing full-dress productions became too expensive," said Scott Alan Evans, TACT's executive director and co-artistic director with Cynthia Harris and Maia Danziger. "The actors went on retreat and decided to revise their goals. They would do readings of rarely-performed plays." Evans was called in to direct a reading of Uncle Vanya and has been with the group ever since.
Evans began acting at age 10, making his professional debut opposite Sid Caesar in the St. Louis MUNY production of Oliver! He made his Broadway debut in his early 20s in the infamous flop Moose Murders, which was to star Eve Arden. "Eve left the show before we opened," Evans said, "But Holland Taylor, who's gone on to much acclaim as an in-demand TV sitcom star, bravely stepped forward."
Was Moose Murders really that bad? "Sure was! Just before the opening, I was sitting with June Gable (who went on to co-star in the acclaimed 1974 revival of Candide) outside the Eugene O'Neill Theater. She said, 'Do you think we'll run?' I replied, 'June, I hope not!' So it was clear to me. But it was a good experience in a lot of ways. Amazingly, it's still talked about. It was a farce, and we came up short in the director department. It read funny on paper." Evans was also in Doonesbury, a short-lived 1983 musical based on the Garry Trudeau comic strip. Eight years ago, he began a slow transition from acting to directing. "TACT," says Evans, "does what we like to call concert performances. The actors have scripts in hand, and we have some minimal staging. We've been blessed with the involvement of really wonderful actors." He's directing the third production in the five-play 1996/97 series (the season runs from October to May), T.S. Eliot's 1950 Tony-winning The Cocktail Party on Monday, February 3 at 7:30 PM. Simon Billig, Maia Danziger, Paul Hecht and Larry Keith are among those in the company who'll appear with guest artist Simon Jones. Legendary star Irene Worth, who starred in the original Broadway production, attended last Monday night's concert reading and was "thrilled" by what she saw and heard. "Even without sets, props, special lighting, or costuming, we've managed to capture the magic of the playwright's words. I've attempted to approach each concert performance with a new twist on the staging to involve audiences more and more." Concert performance has added meaning since each play is accompanied by an original music score.
Tiger At The Gates and The Matchmaker follow this season. Performances are held at the New York Historical Society, 2 West 77th Street at Central Park West, New York. TACT's season is underwritten by the David Merrick Arts Foundation.
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