Theatre Bay Area’s mission is to unite, strengthen, promote, and advance the theatre community in the San Francisco Bay Area, working from our conviction that theatre and all the arts are an essential public good, critical to a healthy and truly democratic society, and invaluable as a source of personal enrichment and growth.

The Bay Area is known for its long traditions of social, cultural and technological innovation, its extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity, and its commitment to social justice and participatory democracy. These qualities equip our region to tackle critical issues that confront our nation and the globe—opportunities and challenges that often hit California and the Bay Area first. It is our vision that the Bay Area can become a global model for how to create and sustain a diverse society—one that values the arts as an integral component of individual and communal life, as a key element in the exercise of democracy, and as a crucial catalyst for promoting understanding, sparking creativity and fueling economic prosperity.

The theatre community in our region is one of the most important, active and vibrant in the U.S., ranking consistently among the top five American metropolitan regions by number of theatre companies per capita, number of resident professional actors and number of plays premiered each year. Bay Area theatre is widely recognized for its aesthetic diversity, its thematic daring and its openness to new forms, borne out of the region’s long history of social and cultural experimentation, and the savvy adventurousness of local audiences. Theatre Bay Area was founded in 1976 to provide essential programs and services for this extraordinary community, and is today one of the nation’s largest regional arts service organizations.

Theatre Bay Area serves both theatre-makers and theatre-goers with a broad array of programs. We engage our community on multiple levels as: 1) a professional alliance for theatre and dance companies, 2) a service organization providing support, career development and community for theatre artists; 3) a significant outlet for arts coverage, offering a broad spectrum of print and online content; 4) a catalyst to spur engagement in the arts through creative audience development efforts; 5) a significant arts funder providing $250,000 in grants annually; and, 6) a champion for the arts working to shape public policy and build consensus around the idea that the performing arts are critical to a healthy society.