Young Performers Theatre

Young Performers Theatre offers fully staged repertory productions, after-school classes, and week-long summer camp sessions. Activities include teaching the fundamentals of story structure, character development, dramatization, and improvisation. Students create their own characters and adventures, and short, original plays are staged for friends and families.

• Ages: 3–18 years old
• Schedule: Week-long summer camp sessions

Since 1983, children from elementary to high school age have performed plays for audiences at Young Performers Theatre. The program offers kids the opportunity to participate in fully staged repertory productions free of charge and provides continuity for students who age out of children's theatre. Young Performers Theatre offers after-school classes for children from pre-K to high-school age.

The mission of Young Performers Theatre 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 lifelong appreciation of the arts; providing a welcoming, 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.

Young Performers Theatre offers programming and outreach to schools and communities that lack access to theatre arts-based enrichment curricula, and collaborates with Blue Bear School of Music and San Francisco Children's Art Center to offer camps combining music, art and drama. In the selection and treatment of students, staff, volunteers, vendors and board members, as well as provision of services, Young Performers Theatre does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status or military status, and is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all stakeholders.

The leadership team includes YPT Executive Director Stephanie Holmes; John Michael Mulcahy, who assisted with directing Nova Goes Below and played the role of Alfie; thirteen-year-old actor and playwright Katherine (Kate) Gargiulo, who wrote the adaptation of A Christmas Carol for YPT; and alum Emily Cronan, who wrote and adapted Nova Goes Below. According to YPT Executive Director Stephanie Holmes, “It just seemed like everything fell into place so perfectly.”

Last updated May 14, 2026.