The Santa Monica Playhouse Actors’ Repertory Theatre®, Young Professionals’ Company and American Cultural Youth Ambassadors, embrace cultural exchange as a vital part of their artistic mission, hosting companies from or traveling to Canada, Cuba, Eire, Ireland, Israel, Italy, England, Sweden, Hong Kong, Japan, Russia and The Netherlands, as well as across the nation from Alaska to New York, as part of its belief in the power of theatre to empower and enhance the quality of life in our local and global communities. Keep scrolling to read a bit about our touring and cultural exchange history...
As well as professional tours, educational theatre tours for ages 10 to adult happen annually. Click the buttons below for more information on these educational tours!
Santa Monica Playhouse is on the forefront of cultural exchange, in many cases being the first touring company to bring a theatrical production to villages and towns on foreign soil. Its artists have created several original bilingual productions which the Playhouse has produced and performed with companies in Japan, and has performed on such historical sites as the ruins of the Kenilworth Castle, the first time a theatrical production was given permission by the English Heritage Foundation. Since its inception, company members (some as young as nine years old) have participated in over four dozen international tours and have hosted over three dozen exchanges with visiting and sister companies at the Santa Monica theatre complex in California.
Exceptionally fervent bonds have been forged between the Playhouse’s Young Professionals’ Company and its two sister companies, the U.K.’s renowned Playbox Theatre at the Dream Factory in Warwickshire, Tokyo’s acclaimed Model Language Studio and Italy's BlueInTheFace Theatre Company.
1989 was a milestone for Playhouse programs. The Montreal tour of "Dear Gabby—the confessions of an over-achiever” was a tremendous success. “We can’t wait to have you back again,” wrote Lynne Travers of the Quebec Board of Education. That trip was the catalyst for an incredible, two-week, seven-city tour of Japan in December of that year, and the beginning of what has developed into series of extensive multi-cultural theatre collaborations with artists, schools, and theatre companies all around the world.
Since 1989, the Playhouse has hosted and participated extensively in cultural exchange programs, both internationally and in its own community. The Los Angeles leg of the English Shakespeare Company’s premiere international tour of “And God Say Amen—Scenes from the Wars of the Roses” was produced by the Playhouse Education Department at UCLA. The Playhouse also produced American Premieres of works by such playwrights as Australia’s David Williamson, Canada’s Michel Garneau and South Africa’s Brenda Krantz, as well as hosting the Darling Desperadoes and The Stockholm City Theatre from Sweden, Martin Radford’s South Sea Island Theatre Company (SITCOM) from Hong Kong, numerous cultural exchanges in the city of Santa Monica with Japan’s Model Language Studio and the International Human Network, 25 years of exchanges with Playbox Theatre, and a most amazing educational exchange between the City of Santa Monica and the Alaska Youth Theatre, who presented "Good-bye My Island", the words, music and poetry of the Inupiat King Islanders whose culture was all but decimated when they forced to leave their ancient home and abandon their customs and traditions. The Playhouse was host to La Colmenita, the National Children’s Theatre of Cuba, an historic theatre tour, marking 45 years since a Cuban children's performance group has come to the United States and proud of its bi-lingual ShortBurst Theatre® collaborative Poco a Poco with members of Actors' Repertory Theatre®, the Actors' Workshop and BlueInTheFace Theatre Company from Civitavecchia, Rome, Italy.