GRTCCV provides: (1) classes for children, youth, and adults; (2) touring productions; (3) staged readings; (4) ballet folklorico training; and (5) performances of reinvented classics at pivotal Coachella Valley venues.

Now in its 17th season, GRTCCV is focusing especially on serving the Central and East Coachella Valley, providing employment development training. Many alumni of our training programs have found paid theatre work in the Coachella Valley and beyond, or majored in theatre at colleges and universities.

For many years, the summer conservatory’s large Broadway musical trained 60 young actors and technicians. However, responding partly to changes wrought by the pandemic, recently Green Room has focused on projects that address the needs of under-served local communities, such as bilingual theatre productions and plays that address important social justice issues. For example, we just concluded a successful Newish Shakespeare Festival. This included productions of “Como Te Gusta” (our family-friendly bilingual adaptation of “As You Like It”) and “American Moor” (about a veteran African-American actor’s experience taking on the role of “Othello” while working with an inexperienced White director). We also presented an immersive adaptation of George Orwell’s “1984.”

Recently we expanded ballet folklorico classes in Indio public schools and spotlighted folklorico performances along with our theatre productions.

GRTCCV is innovative in its performance venues, themes, and approaches. For example, we recently devised a play about the history of “Section 14,” addressing a controversial episode when the City of Palm Springs in the 1960s forcibly evicted hundreds of mainly Black and Latine residents from a planned downtown redevelopment site. This innovative project used oral history and a community advisory committee to help develop the play. Our performances have been held in a 400-seat auditorium, a brew pub, bookstores, and even a cemetery in order to reach diverse audiences.