Pam MacKinnon on ACT; Isaac Butler on how culture wars shaped the NEA

Top: Gianna DiGregorio Rivera, Yeena Sung, and Hillary Fisher in "||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||" at American Conservatory Theater (photo by Kevin Berne); a Robert Mapplethorpe retrospective in Ljubljana, Slovenia (photo by Robert Marin, via Wikimedia)

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June 5, 2026 American Theatre Editors Leave a comment

Pam MacKinnon on ACT, Isaac Butler on the NEA

ACT’s outgoing artistic director talks about the joys and challenges of an artistic home, and an author/critic explains how yesterday’s culture wars paved the way for today’s.

By American Theatre Editors

Offscript is American Theatre ’s flagship podcast , available wherever you get your podcasts (including Spotify and Apple Podcasts ).

On this month’s episode, we talk to Pam MacKinnon , the Tony-winning director best known for the 2013 Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and a series of plays by Bruce Norris, from Clybourne Park to Downstate . Pam, now in her last months as artistic director of San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, has brought one of her last efforts there, Eisa Davis’s play ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| , to New York for a run at the Vineyard Theatre through June 21 .

Then we speak to Isaac Butler , a critic and director and author whose new book, The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars , tells the story of the religious right’s war on pop culture and the National Endowment for the Arts.

This week’s recommendations: From Rob, Eleni Mandell’s new record, Tailspin ; from Pam, Patrick Radden Keefe’s most recent book, London Falling ; and from Isaac, two records featuring bass playing by Teddy Smith, Horace Silver’s Song for My Father and Kenny Dorham’s Matador .

You can download the episode here. If you have any feedback or suggestions for Offscript, please reach out to at@tcg.org .

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_Originally reported by [American Theatre](https://www.americantheatre.org/2026/06/05/pam-mackinnon-on-act-isaac-butler-on-the-nea/)._