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ABOUT SCS

Continuing a 40-year tradition of staging bold productions of the plays of Shakespeare and other great playwrights.

Our Mission

Founded in 2014 as a newly independent theatre company, SCS continues a 40-year tradition of staging bold productions of the plays of Shakespeare and other great playwrights. Throughout our history, hundreds of thousands of people, young and old, have been enthralled, engaged, and energized by what we bring to the community.

Inspired by Shakespeare, we create and strengthen our community by bringing audiences and theatre artists together to celebrate stories about our collective humanity. Matching a fearless aesthetic with transparent financial responsibility, SCS is passionate about theatre that is inclusive, inquisitive, and that engages with the contemporary moment.

Our Values

REPERTORY
In a true repertory company, actors play parts in most (or all) of the productions offered in any given season. Once each of the shows opens, it enters a schedule of rotating performances, so productions of multiple plays can be seen in a single week.

EDUCATIONAL
SCS engages with students and community members through many education programs, including professional internships, student matinees, free youth tickets, educational newsletters, lesson plans for teachers, symposia, and in-school visits.

PROFESSIONAL
SCS believes in equitable wages and therefore hires members of entertainment trade unions providing salaries, pension, and health benefits for their members. For admittance into these unions, these artists must be highly regarded in their respective fields, and maintain their status by garnering regular works with other professional theatre companies. Non-union employees receive industry standard living-wage compensation for their work.

Our History

Shakespeare Play On (later to be known as Santa Cruz Shakespeare) was forged in 2013 when the University of California, Santa Cruz felt it could no longer host our predecessor organization, Shakespeare Santa Cruz. A small but intrepid group of community members met to determine how to continue the Shakespeare Festival and all its rich traditions while creating something new and exciting. We began our journey by reaching out to our community, far and wide, to understand and share how our festival brought value to the artistic and social fabric of our community. The people responded by seeding us with the financial and community support necessary to get started. With great dedication we produced a well-received three-play festival in 2014. Emboldened by this success, we developed a five-year strategic plan to guide future growth and great theatre.

Shortly after finishing our strategic plan in March 2015, we learned we needed to find a new performance venue for the 2016 season. This meant we had to find a space and create a new outdoor theatre in little more than a year! All while producing our second summer festival, which we had committed to expand from three to four productions. Again, we asked our community for help.

The City of Santa Cruz became a new member of our growing family and it has become a critical partner to Santa Cruz Shakespeare. Together we identified land in DeLaveaga Park owned by the City of Santa Cruz and, in just a few short months, agreement was reached to allow SCS to construct an outdoor theatre on that property. With the land secured, our faithful and generous community rallied behind SCS and provided the resources that would create the Audrey Stanley Grove in DeLaveaga Park.

The result? We proudly opened the 2016 Summer Festival in our new home, complete with a new stage, theatre, tech booth, box office, and audience amenities!

Going forward we will focus on strengthening our artistic work, enhancing the audience experience, and deepening our roots in the community. We are already working towards achieving this vision. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has fueled and shared the journey of Santa Cruz Shakespeare thus far. We invite you to become part of our next adventure, our artistic endeavors, and the burgeoning community that awaits us all.

In Loving Memory of our Founder

All of us at Santa Cruz Shakespeare mourn the death of Audrey Stanley, visionary founder, mentor, artist, and beloved friend.  Though we are deeply saddened by her loss, we celebrate her astonishing life and the rich legacies she leaves behind.

As the first woman to direct a Shakespeare play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1975, the first PhD in Dramatic Art from UC Berkeley, and the first professor appointed to Theatre Arts at UCSC, she shattered barriers.  She also, however, was a tireless builder and creator, instrumental in establishing theatre departments, touring companies, and, of course, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, the much-loved summer festival whose artistic tradition we continue to this day.

Audrey’s insistence on a Shakespeare company that thrived on the bridge between scholarship and art, a passion for community engagement, and a bold contemporary aesthetic launched a true repertory festival whose productions, both on and off campus, have reached over half a million audience members in more than forty years. We find comfort in the fact that, like Shakespeare, Audrey Stanley’s life and work will continue to touch and shape the lives of those she knew as well as the lives of countless theatre goers to come.