Mark Jackson is one of the Bay Area theater scene's most promising auteurs. The writer-director first came to prominence as the creator of the experimental Art Street Theatre in the mid 1990s (named "Best Experimental Theater Company" in SF Weekly's 2000 Best Of San Francisco' awards.) The Death of Meyerhold, written and directed by Jackson in 2003 in collaboration with Shotgun Players, sealed his reputation. Having returned to San Francisco following a two-year fellowship in Berlin, Jackson is more in demand than ever. Over the past few months, he's helmed well-received productions of Oscar Wilde's Salome for Aurora Theatre, Michel Marc Bouchard's The Orphan Muses for A.C.T's Master of Fine Arts program, and his own plays, The Forest War and American $uicide at Shotgun Players and Encore Theatre Company, respectively. He's also currently developing projects with the likes of Z Space and SF Playhouse. While not all of his productions shine as brightly as they should (American $uicide, in particular, lacked the imagination of much of its creator's recent work), Jackson is a rising star.