Dear friends,
YPT has a new home!
After some 40 years of creating love, magic and community in Building C at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, we’ve moved into a larger, better-equipped space in Building D — just across the parking lot.
Fall classes will begin the week of Sept. 16. Repertory productions will resume in the fall. If your child has participated in classes or summer camps at YPT and has interest in repertory, please email us.
The old space was special and unique but needed a lot of work: the light grid, the curtain tracks, the built-in seats and more. Last summer, the electrical outlet that supplied power to the stage lights blew completely.
Southside has an incredibly rich theatrical history and comes with a modern, fully functional tech booth, along with dressing rooms, backstage and shop areas, and the opportunity to almost triple our audience size (in beautiful seats!). At the same time, there are ways to make the space feel small and approachable to our younger students, including a room for real littles to have class offstage.
YPT is excited about collaborating and sharing resources with Magic Theatre, whose space is connected to Southside. (Back in the day, Magic occupied Southside.) Stay tuned for announcements about classes and workshops covering a wide range of skills and disciplines — elevating YPT to a new level as an arts-education organization.
Read more about the move and what it means for YPT. We’d love to hear from you and look forward to seeing you soon at Southside!
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us build a bridge to the future as we resume normal operations. Everything helps!
Developing a lifelong love of the arts
Our mission is to provide every child in the Bay Area with the opportunity to tell their stories and participate in theatre, with the aim of instilling a life-long appreciation of the arts; providing a safe, supportive space for social bonding; and fostering the skills necessary to succeed in life including self-confidence, empathy, focus, teamwork and creative thinking to solve problems.
Hansel and Gretel, 2017
© Amal Bisharat Photography
Classes and summer camps
YPT offers after-school and weekend classes for children from pre-K to high-school age, teaching the fundamentals of story structure, character development, dramatization and improvisation, as well as musical theatre, stagecraft and tech. Summer camp students act out classic and contemporary stories, stage mini-musicals and develop and perform scripts of their own making. YPT also collaborates with Blue Bear School of Music and San Francisco Children's Art Center to offer camps combining music, art and drama.
Madeline at the Circus, 2019
© Amal Bisharat Photography
Support YPT
As a leader in providing engaging learning opportunities to children from all socioeconomic backgrounds, YPT has acquired a distinct viewpoint on the interplay of the arts and cognitive abilities; on how storytelling, music, movement, pantomime and improvisation help children form social networks and develop the impulse control, listening ability and behavior modulation necessary to be attentive audience members and supportive collaborators. Help us expand our outreach to Bay Area children, support the professional development of our staff, and build awareness of the efficacy of our pedagogies in early childhood education.
Cinderella, 2017
© Amal Bisharat Photography
Making theatre-arts enrichment accessible
Young Performers Theatre offers kids the opportunity to participate in fully staged repertory productions free of charge and provides programming and outreach to schools and communities that lack access to theatre arts-based enrichment curricula. Using drama as a teaching tool fosters empathy and motivates children to engage with stories and interact with each other in ways that helps them achieve success in school and beyond.
Fantastic Mr. Fox, 2018
© Amal Bisharat Photography
Join us for a show!
“There is something magical about kids performing for kids,” says YPT Artistic/Executive Director Stephanie Holmes. Since 1983, children from elementary to high school age have performed plays for young audiences at YPT, bonding together to get the best out of stories and each other. After the pandemic subsides, when casts and live audience can once again convene safely in person, we look forward to welcoming everyone back to our space at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, a vital hub of creative and cultural activity worthy of your patronage and financial support.
Winnie the Pooh, 2013
