Be the Hero Behind the Scenes

Our mission to provide positive, inclusive, family theater depends on you.

As is true for many arts organizations, we depend heavily on grants and donations from you to operate.

With your support, we will have the foundation we need to sustain the people and operational resources required to secure the grants that will bolster our mission.

We need your help to continue supporting local artists and providing meaningful experiences.

We employ dozens of artists, put hundreds of children and adults onstage, and bring joy to thousands of audience members each year. Our values and commitment to providing meaningful, welcoming experiences, have allowed us to become a haven for LGBTQIA+ teens, people of all ages with neurodiversity superpowers, and folks with unique ways of moving through the world.

All of this happens because we prioritize kindness, pay our staff and teaching artists a fair wage as employees, and deliver high production value while making space for everyone.

Specifically, we increased annual staff salaries to move pay scales closer to theater industry norms and to ensure compliance with labor laws for salaried employees. We moved from a volunteer-intern model to a paid-intern model to enable interns from diverse economic backgrounds to participate in our community. We also have experienced double-digit percent increases in theater rental costs, insurance, and other operational costs.

We see people of all ages gain from their experience with Playful People. Please give now so we can continue our work benefitting the entire community, regardless of the economic means or historic marginalization of participants.

Did you know? Having Theater Arts participation on a resume helps your STEM-oriented child stand out among the crowded field of college STEM applicants. It gives participants the experiences in public speaking, courage, overcoming obstacles, and resilience that corporations seek today.

Arts are the ultimate TEAM sport – working collaboratively to build a product, demonstrating patience in listening and learning from others’ views, embracing the beautiful diversity present in our world, seeking inclusion as a broader part of the team, and motivating and influencing a group of people.

Your donation will help us expand our outreach programs, scholarships, and intern programs, allowing us to welcome more people from our local community.

Here are three quick stories illustrating our impact:

*A trans teen struggling with rejection in his personal life played a lead character role on the Playful People stage and brought himself and the entire audience to tears singing a song about identity and taking us through the character’s journey from alienation to community acceptance. Playful People provided him with a welcoming environment where he can be his authentic self and tell his story fully.

*Sylvie, a teen who grew up performing, interning and stage managing with Playful People auditioned for a show at UCLA, and didn’t get the part. Her time with Playful People gave her the resilience, self-confidence, courage, perspective and stagecraft skills to pivot, reach out to the director, and become the theater club’s main stage manager in her first quarter of her first year in college.

*Kim, a Playful People parent has this to say: “My daughter is on the Autism Spectrum. We tried all the other children’s theater companies in the area. Playful People is the only one that genuinely valued my daughter’s unique gifts and talents; she finally feels like she belongs. Our heart and soul are with this company; we’ve found our home.”

Please help us strengthen our foundation so we can continue to deliver gifts like these to our community.

Remember: Ask your employer about matching grants!