Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Through onsite classes and scholarships, student matinees, and free and deeply discounted arts education outreach programs for schools in underserved communities, Berkeley Rep ensures access to some of the Bay Area's finest teaching artists and productions. In our robust theatre education programs, students build literacy, social, and emotional skills, and develop their aptitude for working cooperatively in groups, while learning about the dynamic mode of theatrical storytelling. The Berkeley Rep School of Theatre offers arts learning opportunities that students may not necessarily have access to during the school day, particularly at more economically disadvantaged schools. To keep our programs broadly accessible, we offer additional subsidies to public schools in nine Bay Area counties, student matinee transportation stipends to classrooms in need, and over $30,000 in scholarships to low-income students for fee-based classes. We firmly believe that our arts education programs help give all students, regardless of financial background, the tools they need to access their creativity and be impactful members of their communities.

The Ground Floor, Berkeley Rep’s Center for the Creation and Development of New Work, encompasses all of Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s new play development activity. Annual activities include Berkeley Rep’s artist commissioning program, workshops, readings, a weekly writers’ room, and the annual Summer Residency Lab. Since its inception in 2011, nearly 800 artists (including playwrights, directors, actors, musicians, and more) have participated in Ground Floor programming. The Ground Floor’s fundamental commitment to process means that we are constantly exploring new ways to meet artists’ unique needs at every stage of development, and it is this flexibility and dedication that allows us to bring adventurous new work to our audiences in Berkeley and theatres across the nation. Through developing new work via the Ground Floor and presenting world premieres our stages, Berkeley Rep supports our generation’s most compelling voices, whose stories offer a complex, multi-faceted vision of the world. In all, eleven plays have transitioned from the Summer Residency Lab to a Berkeley Rep stage, and many others have received world premieres at reputable theatres throughout the nation.