If you’re looking for this afternoon or evening’s entertainment, look no farther than down the road to The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage, more commonly known as The Broad Stage. This grand venue, located at the state-of-the-art, modernist Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, is a special place for Los Angeles artists and audiences. Founded in 2008 by celebrated lyric soprano Dale Franzen with the mission to promote artistic excellence, creativity, and collaboration, The Broad Stage has already established itself as the go-to destination for performance arts on the Westside. Newly expanded, the East Wing houses music spaces such as the Music Hall, the Music Lab, and a rehearsal space. The new Music Hall seats up to 165 people indoors and can expand out to the plaza for larger events for up to 350 people. Quincy Jones says, “The Broad Stage is a facility that fosters a community of collaboration that all artists, in particular jazz artists, thrive in.”
With Franzen at the helm and an artistic advisory board star-studded with the likes of chair Dustin Hoffman and world-famous opera singer Plácido Domingo, it’s not hard to understand why The Broad Stage has become a magnetic cultural epicenter where artists come to produce and stage a range of creative endeavors. Dustin Hoffman says, “The influx of creativity and inspiration here has had a holistic impact on our community. The mounting artistic vitality from the last 5 years is beyond what we could have imagined, and I am so thrilled to be a part of it.”
Live performance offerings this season include the Dallas Theatre Company’s adaptation of E.B. White’s children’s classic Stuart Little, Julian Sands directed by John Malkovich in a celebration of the late Nobel Prize–winning playwright Harold Pinter, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a new collaboration between Bristol Old Vic and the Handspring Puppet Company. Walking into The Broad Stage, you immediately feel the Italian “horseshoe” influence. Though spacious—seating up to 499 patrons—the venue retains intimacy between audience and artist. Some performances take place in The Broad Stage’s even more intimiate experimental stage: The Edye.
“The Broad Stage enters its fifth season having successfully attracted new and bigger audiences,” according to Franzen. “We accomplished this thanks to an artistic vision that attracted some of the worlds undisputed cultural avatars, like dancer-choreographers Savion Glover, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Bill T. Jones; theater artists Dustin Hoffman, Peter Brook, F. Murray Abraham, and Anna Deavere Smith; musicians Joshua Bell and Bradford Marsalis; and singers Esperanza Spalding, Plácido Domingo, and Marilyn Horne.”
The Broad Stage has something for everyone. Whether your pleasure is theater, dance, film, opera, musical theater, symphony, or chamber orchestra, you’ll find a bounty of options. The hardest part might be deciding which show, film, dance performance, or musical to attend.
Visit The Broad Stage Performance Calendar for the current schedule.
1310 11th St., Santa Monica, CA 90401
www.TheBroadStage.com
310.434.3200
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