SCLA’s current programming operates on three intersecting tracks: Professional Mainstage Theater Production; Arts-Based Employment and Workforce Training; and Arts Education.

Our Mainstage Productions, produced via a contract with Actors’ Equity Association, are performed by professional actors. Productions are produced for general audiences with special Student Matinee performances offered to Title 1 schools. Most recently, in March and April of 2023, SCLA staged 30 performances – 27 general admission performances and 3 performances for schools – of The Tempest: An Immersive Experience. The Los Angeles Times named this production one of the “nine top Los Angeles theater offerings for 2023.”

Will Power After-School serves youth aged from 14-24 who are hired as full-time, paid employees to study, create, produce, and perform adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. Youth are guided throughout by trained teaching artists/mentors, human relations facilitators, and peer mentors who are program alumni.

In 2012, SCLA launched Veterans in Art (ViA), a program offering short-term paid vocational training in technical theater arts and life-skills development for high-need, chronically underemployed, honorably discharged U.S. military veterans. Its goal is to build confidence and community for veterans who are struggling with their reentry to civilian life. ViA participants work as venue and scenic crews, audio engineers, wardrobe assistants, and technical directors for professional and WPY productions.

Will Power to Schools offers teachers at Title 1 schools from LAUSD with in-person professional development seminars, arts integration training projects, and free innovative curriculum materials. This nationally-recognized program enhances the way teachers at Title 1 schools inspire meaningful classroom engagement related to the works of William Shakespeare.