Creating Next-Generation Artists: Youth Theatre Conservatory

Access to tech and creative industry employment

Central LA East LA South LA San Gabriel Valley West LA San Fernando Valley

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

The arts are increasingly acknowledged as a social determinant of health, integral to thriving, inclusive communities (LA Arts & Health Summit 2024). While arts education is a vital community-building, youth empowerment, and learning resource proven to enhance personal and social protective factors, inequity in access to education, the arts, and youth development opportunities remains a stark reality in LA.

All three of USTC’s service areas—San Fernando; South/East Los Angeles; and Northwest Pasadena/Altadena—are located in close proximity to wealthy enclaves. But this proximity belies equity. Each USTC service area falls within the lower quartiles of the Healthy Places Index, and our newest service area of Northwest Pasadena/Altadena is an area of underinvestment within the city, ranking “highest” in numerous inequity drivers according to multiple indexes. USTC knows that the young people in our service communities have what it takes to make extraordinary art—what they lack is access.

USTC’s flagship Youth Theatre Conservatory offers free, experiential theatre-arts education and mentoring to high school students during after school hours. We not only meet the immense need for arts education in our underserved target areas, but provide a powerful platform for youth to identify and leverage their innate talents; build creativity and confidence; develop essential life skills that equip them to tackle personal/social challenges—and find pathways to creative industry employment.

During the grant period, USTC will provide our recently re-vamped Conservatory curriculum at 5 sites and, for the first time ever, partner with a professional theater—Boston Court Pasadena—to co-host a Conservatory and provide students with access to the broader LA artistic ecosystem. Through Conservatory, students take part in a year-long, 22-week residency rooted in college-level concepts in playwriting and performance, creating original shorts plays and gaining creative industry skills. The work is 100% student-generated: an uncensored, ensemble-driven devising process uses the student’s lived experiences to shape the work from start to finish. This both an artistic and civic act—letting youth take charge of the narratives that define them.

Conservatory is expanding into a sequential, multi-year model to engage high school students across four academic levels, providing scaffolded skill-building. We will offer Level 1 in 2025-26, and offer both Levels 1 and 2 in fall 2026.

Through this work, USTC will enrich distinctive neighborhoods with home-grown art, strengthen cross-county connections, and promote an LA where art is accessible to all. We will reach 250 youth participants (200 Level 1, 50 Level 2) and 3,150+ community audience members. Our Conservatory residencies are often transformative experiences for participants, who discover their inner strength, creativity, and capacity for collaboration with peers outside of their normal social groups—and their true potential.

Long-term, we aim to become the preeminent LA institution for comprehensive, accessible theatre-arts education that prepares young people for higher education/careers, with a Youth Theatre Center to unite our service communities. The Center will function as a centralized, multi-purpose “hub” for innovation in the dramatic arts and applied technologies; fostering a new generation of creators for LA’s evolving theatre scene, with career tracks in acting, directing, production, and design.