Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum

We work towards these goals by continuing to broaden inclusion of audiences, artists, stories, and histories. We are committed to true diversity in gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socio-economics being represented on our stages and throughout our educational programs. Theatricum views theatre, music, and art as an educational force and an opportunity to engage all generations and communities in celebration of our shared humanity.

Theatricum’s programs are as rich and complex as arts organizations much larger in size. In their diversity, these programs represent the company’s commitment to making the arts available and accessible to the widest possible range of communities in Los Angeles and its surrounding areas.

The Repertory Company
The backbone of all of Theatricum’s programs, the Repertory Company is led by Artistic Director Ellen Geer and offers a selection of 4-5 plays (classic or modern American), in a rotating repertory schedule each season, running from June to October. The addition of the 88-seat S. Mark Taper Foundation Pavilion as a performance space for Theatricum’s Repertory Season has allowed the organization to expand its Repertory offerings to include more intimate pieces.

Intern and Apprenticeship Programs
Professional Acting Interns are cast in main-stage productions; are given training; audit Adult Academy classes; participate in a 10-week workshop; and perform in a showcase on the main-stage at season’s end. Apprentices are artists who return for a second year of mentorship and training. In addition, Theatricum offers Technical and Arts Administrative Internship positions as well as the Teen Theatre Artist in Training Program.

Academy of the Classics
With ongoing private classes for Youth (4-14 yrs), Teens (14-18 years) and Adults, Theatricum’s Academy of the Classics offers inspiring, intensive training for novice and professional performers.

School Programs
School Days Field Trip Program
Students (K-12) and teachers from public, private, parochial and special needs schools travel to Theatricum’s outdoor amphitheatre to see a full production of a Shakespeare play, participate in an interactive Living History program featuring Queen Elizabeth and William Shakespeare, and engage in technique workshops. Prior to the field trip, students receive an in-school preparatory visit and teachers receive an extensive study guide are invited to participate in a professional development workshop.
Classroom Enrichment
Theatricum offers extensive arts education programming in the schools in the following categories: Assemblies (American History, Literary History, Shakespeare, and Children’s Literature); Workshops; Students Act the Classics (students are directed by Theatricum artist-educators in edited versions of Shakespeare plays); Classics off-the-Page (individually designed curriculum created to bring a particular text “off-the-page” ); and Americana off-the-Page (individually designed curriculum created to bring a particular period in American History “off-the-page”). Programs are tailored for each teacher’s needs and are brought directly on-site.

Community Outreach
Outreach includes: our Playwright Development Program; Family Fundays, music and theatre for very young children; Under the Oaks, readings, improvisation, and concerts; the annual July 4th Barn Dance and Halloween Boo-tanicum, when we invite the wider LA community to celebrate on our grounds.

Theatricum’s 15-acre grounds are located in the unique, rustic community of Topanga Canyon, but the organization engages a constituency well beyond its neighborhood. The unique nature of Theatricum’s Repertory experience makes it a destination theatre with patrons visiting annually from across the state, and indeed across the nation. Artistic Director Ellen Geer’s commitment to diversity of age, gender, and ethnicity in her Repertory casting have ensured that Theatricum’s audiences include patrons of all ages and diverse cultural backgrounds. While the private Academy of the Classics pulls primarily from Theatricum’s local communities (Westside, Agoura Hills, Topanga, west San Fernando Valley), the School Programs extend that reach to virtually every corner of the greater Los Angeles area. School Program participants include PK-12th grade students from Pacoima, San Pedro, Westchester, Burbank, Pasadena, Bell, Ventura, Oxnard, Studio City, and the list continues. These students represent every ethnic and socio-economic group that make of the diverse cultural landscape of L.A.

Theatricum has a sterling reputation for presenting high-quality professional theatre as well as private and school-based arts education for all ages. The Repertory has been honored with NAACP, Backstage West, Ovation, LADCC, and other awards and nominations. In 2014, Theatricum was highlighted by Shakespeare on the Road, an initiative of the University of Warwick, commemorating the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. The Repertory serves over 11,000 audience members each season from throughout the greater Los Angeles area and beyond. Theatricum has staged works ranging from Shakespeare to Arthur Miller, Dylan Thomas to Lillian Hellman, Brecht to Euripides, Williams to Wilder. With engagement and inclusion core to our vision, classic plays are regularly cast with diverse actors as well as reinterpreted to express cultural ideas and diversify artists. Theatricum proudly brings to the stage works featuring the stories of communities of color.

Over 15,000 school children are exposed to Shakespeare, important figures in American history, and interactive music and theatre programs, and performances held both at our theatre and directly at school sites. The Academy of the Classics extends Theatricum’s reach into the community through Youth Drama Camp, Saturday writing and performance workshops for youth and teens; Summer Intensive Shakespeare Seminars (for adults of all experience levels); Teen Repertory Company and a variety of technique workshops.

Now more than ever, people of every age, race, ethnicity, economic class, ability, sexuality, and gender need and deserve access to the highest quality of arts education and theatre, and we are in a unique position to provide exactly that.