Founded in 1974, Cal Shakes is an award-winning, nationally recognized regional theater now under the leadership of Executive Director Clive Worsley. Through seasonal productions at our outdoor amphitheater, and in year-round school and community-based programs, Cal Shakes expands access to the arts and builds diverse ownership of our region's cultural vitality by fostering participatory approaches to the artistic process and arts education.
Over the last decade, our Main Stage productions—both new works and responses to Shakespeare and the classics—have earned a national reputation for their exhilarating artistry and boldness of imagination. We engage artists of the highest caliber from around the country to make the past present, reimagining the classics with a thrilling potency that provides a diversity of perspectives and aesthetics to an audience of more than 45,000 people annually.