BroadwayWorld: Center Theatre Group has announced its 2026/27 “Back to School” programming featuring a slate of education and engagement programs for students, educators and schools, and community members throughout Los Angeles. Since its founding, Center Theatre Group has engaged the next generation of theatre audiences, artists, and administrators through educational programming, community engagement, and opportunities to experience the joy of creating theatre.
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Center Theatre Group's 2026/27 “Back to School” program is great for the future of performing arts as a whole. By creating help through apprenticeships, observerships, student ambassadorships, student matinees, and storytelling residencies, these are an essential bridge between the academic education and real-world professional careers in Los Angeles, California. For emerging artists, students, and local educators, this hands-on engagement removes the hardness and confusion of commercial production and gives access to professional mentorship in the industry. In my view, giving these resources to under-sourced schools and opening these doors for the youth is beneficial and critical for creating an inclusive arts community. When creators see their voices valued by professionals in professional spaces, it opens who gets to tell stories on stage. By helping early talent and truly deepening relationships with mentors and other young creators, Center Theatre Group's 2026/27 “Back to School” program demonstrates that this access to the arts is indispensable.
This program seems like a great way to involve the next group of theatre artists and help emerging artists gain more experience. Involving high school and college students offers an accessible way to learn more about the process of a production in a hands-on environment. Different levels of mentorship and hands-on experience offered by the various programs offered allows for anyone with interest to find what works for them. Giving emerging theatre artists connections with established professionals is a great way for them to gain more understanding of how a professional theatre may operate differently than their school or community theater experience while still having the support of a learning environment and mentorship. Additionally student matinees and touring school shows offer students a chance to be exposed to creative storytelling and helps promote both the arts and the messages these plays showcase. Center Theatre Group's program is an important resource for emerging artists.
The Center Theatre Group, an LA-based theatre company, has newly announced "Back to School" programming. It stands out to me as it offers a paid opportunity for young artist to further explore and learn within their and parallel disciplines. Rather than generic outreach (like many theatres tend to do), each initiative is anchored to specific productions. Student Ambassadors will do programming related to the production of John Proctor is the Villain, a play that explores students in their high school English class. What stood out most to me is how specific and layered the programs are. The Ambassador program shapes its curriculum around the female-identifying experience since that's central to the play. Meanwhile, Observerships let college students sit in on rehearsals for shows like Fiddler on the Roof and Fences, and Apprenticeships take it a step further by having participants work alongside industry professionals. CTG also prioritizes under-resourced LA County schools for matinees and limits the Storytelling Residency to Title 1 schools, so it feels like they're actually trying to reach the students who need this access most.
I find this program really comprehensive in how it covers a diversity of experience levels and interests in theatre, as well as the specific focus they want to gain from this educational and engagement opportunity. From student ambassadorships, observerships, and apprenticeships to student matinees and storytelling residencies, the program offers opportunities ranging from observing backstage rehearsals to actively working alongside industry experts in artistic and technical production careers. By including the timeline and locations for reference, the article also makes these opportunities fairly accessible to those who may be interested. However, I think including hyperlinks to additional information, such as costs and course syllabi/specific program breakdowns, would provide more useful information for readers to make an informed decision (it seems as though the link at the end of the article doesn’t lead to a discoverable page. But integrating these hyperlinks when introducing the different opportunities would also make the information more accessible and helpful).
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