Each year, from October through April, DETC produces four fully staged productions and one season opening concert.

Productions are selected according to the following criteria. Plays must be from the contemporary canon, preferably written within the past five years. Plays are selected that have been produced off-Broadway, off-off Broadway, in regional theatres, or written specifically for DETC. Plays, whether comedy and drama, must be relevant to contemporary social issues. Our goal is to challenge audiences to explore diverse points of view.

DETC has produced the world premieres of nine works by Founder and Playwright-in-Residence Tony Padilla. We also produced the 2022 world premiere of “Do Not Remove Label” by Jerome Elliott Moskowitz, a dramedy about religious persecution and gender identity; and the 2020 world premiere of “Adoption Roulette” by Elizabeth Fuller and Joel Vig, a harrowing look at corruption and fraud in the Russian adoption system.

DETC’s season opening benefit, “Singing with the Desert Stars” was inaugurated in 2022. A friendly competition-style event, it is a benefit for DETC’s theatre internship and scholarship program. In this program,, students receive on-the-job, professional experience that helps prepare them for work beyond the comfort of school. stage management, lighting design, assistant directing and set design. They are mentored closely by our company directors, designers and technical experts and receive increasingly more responsibility as the season progresses and they demonstrate their proficiency and mastery of specific assignments. In order to be a part of DETC’s training program, students must maintain a certain level of excellence in their regular school studies. Currently, we work with students from Cathedral City HS, Palm Springs HS and Rancho Mirage HS. Since 2011, we have awarded nearly $40,000 in scholarships, primarily to Latinx and Black students from low-income families.