Carey Perloff Expands on "Beautiful Chaos"

Carey Perloff, an award-winning playwright, theater director, and the artistic director of the American Conservatory Theater, has just penned a highly-anticipated memoir. Beautiful Chaos.  Published by City Lights, this slender narrative has won praise from actors, playwrights, and fellow authors, and should be popular with Bay Crossing readers.

Bay Crossings: Your new book is meeting with considerable critical acclaim. Can you tell us what inspired this “tell-all?”

Carey Perloff: I was asked by AMERICAN THEATER MAGAZINE to write something for my 20th Anniversary at A.C.T., so I began with an account of my rather hair-raising first year in San Francisco. I got a lot of response in which people wanted to know MORE, so I just dove in and kept writing, never quite realizing, until it was too late, that I was writing a whole book!

BC: What lessons are you trying to relate to young women seeking a career in this business?

Perloff: I have tried to be frank about why and how it is a hard career for women, but also about what great joy the work holds. I talk a lot about resilience, about mentorship, about trying to stay true to your own aesthetic and about the hilarious challenges of raising children in the theater, and how enriching that can be in spite of the chaos.

 BC: Any general truths contained for women in all professions?

Perloff: We always have to be twice as good and work twice as hard to get half the distance. That's just a given. The presumption that we as women know what we're doing is never a given, so often one feels as if one is fighting the same battles again and again.

 BC: Our readers spend a lot of time commuting on ferries. Any plays you can recommend that speak to this gentle form of transportation?

Perloff: What a lovely question!  Plays are wonderful to read because they take about the length of a ferry ride, unlike novels. Some plays are easier right off the page than others, but for good ferry reading I would recommend O'Neill, who loved the sea, Chekhov, who can make you weep and fall in love in one act, August Wilson who spins gold out of hardship, or perhaps a contemporary writer like Jose Rivera who rights a lot about travel and magical places. I would save Stoppard and Shaw for dry land!

BC: Tell us a little bit about The Strand. How will its mission be defined?

Perloff: It will be transformative for a neighborhood that has seen very little positive street life and very little joy over the past fifty years-- the Strand will be a welcoming and open community space for wonderful collaborations and creative collisions to happen.

BC: The San Francisco Bay Area comprises a great deal of diversity. How do you find a way to speak to all these tribes?

Perloff: One can never speak to every tribe, but I love trying! Right now we are engaged in a deep way with the exploration of Asian and Asian-American work, from STUCK ELEVATOR to THE ORPHAN OF ZHAO to our upcoming filipino MONSTRESS project, and we are developing two middle eastern projects as well. We have always explored African-American work and developed Africa-American artists in our school.

BC: Finally, how does ACT continue to attract younger audiences, and gain traction in a cultural scene that offers so many entertainment alternatives?

Perloff: For me, it's crucial that people feel welcome and alive when they walk through our doors--  I want our theater to be like everyone's favorite coffee bar and I want people to be regulars and feel that they are among friends when they arrive, no matter what their background or theatrical experience is. For some people, the Geary is daunting because it's such a gilded palace, so I think the Strand, which will be small and easy and open, will be a great beacon for younger audiences.