A professional quality theater experience for everyday community members. A local nonprofit is offering you the chance to partake in high quality theater education and local productions.
The Coastal Performing Arts Foundation has three community programs: Coastal Youth Theater, Beyond Boundaries, and Players West. The latter program offers stage and backstage opportunities for all ages but is geared mainly toward adults on the Central Coast, something Natalia Noriega, the Foundation’s Artistic Board Lead and founder of Coastal Youth Theater, says is vital for adults who want to use their artistic abilities.
“A lot of us are trying to create a theater hub here in the Central Coast, so that all of us can come together and have a place where we can provide an outlet for adults, especially adults who, yes, they have their day-to-day job, but they are talented and bursting out of the seams,” said Noriega. “This is community theater for adults with an educational twist. You're coming to us performing, but you're getting a free class in a sense.”
“We really wanted to provide a space where that middle age of late teens, early twenties, had a space in this Five Cities area because there's not a whole lot in this immediate area right here, so that's how we started cultivating Players West,” said Kaz Pearson, who is on the Board of Directors for the CPAF but also performs in productions. “I do this because that's what I needed when I was younger, and when we see these young performers get up on that stage and break out of these shells and find things within themselves that they never knew they had, that's why we do it.”
“Our ultimate goal here is to provide a classroom for the community that includes theater, musical theater, and dancing techniques, and we need the support of the community for that,” said Noriega.
The Players West program will be putting on their 2nd performance of the year with Footloose the Musical (celebrating the movie’s 40th anniversary) the weekend of August 8-11. If you would like to support the Coastal Performing Arts Foundation and their mission, or if you would like to get involved in local theater, click here.
Auditions for the Coastal Youth Theater’s next show, Mary Poppins Jr., are July 6. Children ages 8-18 are welcome to audition. Click here for more information.
