It was suggested that our October theme should have been "Physicians and the Arts." The two topics obviously are quite different but do reflect the possible breadth of our issue. The intent, however, was to explore the arts as they are available to our medical community and how our physicians participate in them. While the summer issue was to explore our members' leisure pursuits, this issue was to share our cultural pursuits.

The American Conservatory Theater (ACT) has been in San Francisco for about 25 years. We've had season subscriptions for 20 of those years. It has always been a delightful and stimulating experience to appreciate the artistic direction of William Ball, Edward Hastings and now Carey Perloff. Theater was always the high point of a weekend in San Francisco, which might include visits to the museums, galleries, or the bay and ocean, and the fine restaurants.

The current Artistic Director, Carey Perloff began her first season in 1992 with a pale production of "Creditors" by August Strindberg. San Francisco audiences are very forgiving. She then proceeded with "The Pope and the Witch" by Dario Fo which a large segment of the audience found offensively sacrilegious. Even though there were very negative reviews in both the Sacramento and SF papers, we were surprised to be handed brochures on entry to the theater by the "Pope's faithful" cautioning the theater goers as the controversial nature of the production. Neither did we expect to see an exodus before the first intermission, during which time a fourth of the audience left--something we had not witnessed in our twenty years. The last five plays continued in a contentious vein.

Perloff began her second season with "Pygmalion" by (George) Bernard Shaw. Empty seats began to appear. "Pecong" by steve carter (sic) reminded me of high school plays. She then took liberties with productions of Moliere's "Scapin" and Checkhov's "Uncle Vanya." Soon afterwards she announced layoffs and salary cuts. The last three plays, however, began to approach what we considered to be the usual ACT standards, leaving on an optimistic note with David Mamet's "Oleanna."

This month starts Perloff's third season. We are looking forward to her approaching the quality we've come to expect at our premier repertory theater. Her board of directors apparently has faith that she can still restore ACT's following. The decades old stability of the audience is reflected by the fact that over twenty years our seats have only improved six rows, from row "S" (second last row in the orchestra section) to row "M." We hope those empty seats which have appeared in the last two years will once again be filled with eager theater participants.

The high point of our theater, however, has shifted to the Sacramento Theater Company (STC), which has a longer history (over fifty years) beginning at Mather AFB in 1942 settling into its present home on H street in 1949. Like ACT, we have been attending STC for about twenty years. From the days when Charles Goff kept things together, followed by Kendall Teick, through Producing Director Dennis Bigelow for about five years (when the theater acquired its present name) to the current (since 1988) Artistic Director Mark Cuddy, there has been a steady improvement in acting, costume design, stage craft, sound and lighting. In fact we have seen several plays mounted here which were superior to ACT's rendition of the same play.

The last two directors have implemented an innovative "Stage II" theater where the audience surrounds the stage. This is almost the reverse of the experimental theater at the KU Fine Arts Center where an audience seated in 90 swivel seats watch "theater in the round" on three sides. We've seen some exceptional plays on Stage II, finely performed by one to four artists.

At a UCD faculty gathering some years ago, several professors who had always gone to the San Francisco Symphony, mentioned that they had gone to the Sacramento Symphony and were impressed. In fact, they were so pleased by the local talent that they changed their season subscriptions from San Francisco to Sacramento. Although we could probably say the same thing about STC, we will continue to spend our seven weekends in San Francisco even though ACT no longer may be the high point of our visit. And over the years we are missing some of the long time regular artists such as Raye Birk, Elizabeth Huddle, Ray Reinhart, and others, some of whom we see occasionally in film. We were pleased to receive the notice that Sydney Walker and William Paterson will return this season for the David Storey's exquisite play, Home, a lovely, witty drama they assure us we will enjoy.

We will continue to enjoy STC which we consider has become some of the finest theater in Northern California. The season which started last month looks very promising. Hats off and thanks to Mark Cuddy and the entire Sacramento Theater Company.