With support from the California Arts Council, Lower Bottom Playaz will maintain its Oakland venue and produce BAMBDFest 2023, facilitate artistic work by Black women, train community members in stagecraft, employ actors, and continue service to underserved communities. Funding will allow us to team-build and create infrastructure that supports sustainability.
Summer Theater Day Camp (founded 2007): Offers enrichment programming to underserved youth ages 5-18. Employs an original curriculum that focuses on literacy through the arts. Hires troupe members and community youth as instructors. Ends in free community performance.
New Works: An open reading period for new work by playwrights of color.
● Works in Development: Selected New Works go into an extended development process providing playwrights with dramaturgical support, script refinement, a public reading process and production.
● Reading Theater Salons: Curated groups are invited to ‘adopt’ Works in Development, follow the work’s progress, attend readings, offer feedback and act as supporters/advocates.
BAMBDFEST: An annual month long multi-venue arts and culture festival produced in collaboration with the Black Arts Movement Business District Community Development Corporation (BAMBD CDC).
SEASON OFFERINGS: A minimum of two mainstage productions per annual season.
● Free in the zip: Set aside tickets for specific zip codes considering the reality of turfed communities. Connects participation and outreach to specific neighborhoods and populations, creates safe passage, and removes barriers of inter-group conflict and lack of disposable income.
● Community Based Organization Deep Discount Targeted Groups: Target and develop specific pools of audience – i.e., women, girls, homeless, formerly incarcerated – to remove barriers of inclusion and price.
● Off Season: Tour mainstage work locally in community and college circuits and annual community festivals.
*Janga’s House: A three year program to nurture Black Female playwrights, recognizing their marginalization within the industry. Seeks to offer resources in a targeted fashion that allow for the creation and production of theater works by Black Women.

