Theatre West

Founded in 1962, Theatre West is a democratic artistic cooperative dedicated to the artistic growth of its members. Our threefold mission statement is to conduct workshops to further our members artistic growth, present performances grown from those workshops, and to do outreach to the greater community, which we accomplish through both education (apprentices who study for free), children?s theatre, and-- in the case of A Christmas Carol-- partnering with local schools to include children in the play, educate teachers in making art, and creating a fun curriculum, based on the play in English, vocabulary, math, history, and geography. Theatre West has offered some 2,000 professionals over 5,000 workshops in acting, musical comedy, playwrighting, Shakespeare, and improvisation; produced over 250 plays--two-thirds of them original pieces--while maintaining a free weekly workshop for young apprentice members. Our work has been applauded with Tony Awards, Obies, 9 LA Drama Critics Awards, 7 NAACP Image Awards, and over 130 Drama-Logue Awards. Internationally, we have been nominated by the BBC for the Best of the Fringe, and awarded the coveted Cover of the Scotsman at the Edinburgh Festival, as well as Best Ensemble Award at the Dublin Festival.