After Nearly 30 Years, Shakespeare by the Sea Fights to Keep Free Performances Alive
- Sharon Stello
- 2 hours ago
- 10 min read
Theater group Shakespeare by the Sea – which presents free performances – must raise $200,000 by Jan. 31 or risk folding.
To be or not to be: That, unfortunately, is the question that nonprofit theater group Shakespeare by the Sea is facing due to lack of funding. After ending its third consecutive summer season in a deficit, the nearly 30-year-old organization must raise $200,000 by the end of January or be forced to significantly reduce its performance schedule – or potentially cease operations altogether.
Started in 1998 as a graduate student’s thesis project with two weekends of performances in San Pedro, the troupe is now based in Redondo Beach and has expanded to present more than two dozen admission-free shows per summer across Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties. This past summer, 27 performances were spread across parks in 19 cities – including Mission Viejo, Aliso Viejo and Rossmoor in O.C. – and watched by a total of over 10,000 audience members. Since inception, almost half a million people have experienced the group’s free Shakespeare in the park performances, which include a comedy and a tragedy each year. In 2025, the plays were “As You Like It” and “Julius Caesar.”
But, with dwindling funding and no reserves left in the bank, the organization is at a crossroads. The group’s board of directors decided that it can no longer start planning an upcoming season without significant funds in hand.
“We start the year doing the work without there being any funding in place, on a wing and a prayer, hoping it’s going to happen,” said co-artistic director Suzanne Dean. “But because we’ve had deficits year after year after year, we just cannot do that anymore.”
While a majority of the nonprofit’s expenses are incurred between January and June, most of the tour fees are paid after the shows, and Shakespeare by the Sea often waits two or three months after the summer season to receive financial support promised by governments and foundations. For a while, there was some cushion from pandemic-era funding for arts organizations, but that has since been depleted. The group also collects donations and sells raffle tickets, T-shirts and other merchandise at each show, but it’s not enough to bridge the budget gap.
The organization is asking supporters to consider donating now rather than waiting until the end of the year as “that could be the difference between us being able to do the tour at all, being able to do the tour in their community or needing to take a year off to reflect on how things have changed,” Dean said.
So far, almost $73,000 – just over one-third – of the $200,000 goal has been gathered, with donations coming from 239 individuals. And the clock is ticking as the deadline looms.
“We are looking at all options because we … are so passionate about making it happen however it has to happen, even if that’s a reduced season,” said co-artistic director Stephanie Coltrin. “There is the option that it doesn’t happen at all, but we’re fighting hard to make it happen in any incarnation that it can.”
The Play’s the Thing
It costs $13,000 to $14,000 to produce each night’s play. That includes paying the actors and crew, expenses for creating sets and costumes, renting the park space, covering the costs of providing restrooms, a generator, sound system and security when required by the host city – which has happened more frequently since the pandemic – as well as carrying liability insurance. Notably, 76% of the budget is artist payroll since California Assembly Bill 5 passed in 2019, requiring many arts organizations to transition their paid contract workers to official employees – and pay all of the associated taxes like worker’s compensation.
While it’s a costly endeavor, Dean and Coltrin believe it’s important to keep admission free.
“It’s important that this work be delivered to everyone,” Dean said. “Shakespeare’s plays are about humanity and democracy and it’s about getting people … of all different shapes and sizes and ages and beliefs and demographics … in the same space, experiencing humanity together. There are people who can afford to go to the theater and there are people who cannot afford to go to the theater, and everyone deserves to be in the same space.”
There’s an odd perception, Coltrin added, that Shakespeare is an elitist activity – and it’s not.
“Shakespeare was the Steven Spielberg of his day: He wrote for popularity,” Coltrin said. “And so we’re trying to break down this barrier that Shakespeare is a thing that is for some other people and really make it clear that it’s for everyone …. I can’t tell you how many times in the parks someone has come up to me and said, ‘I’ve never seen a Shakespeare play before and now I understand it.’
“And they come back year after year with their children and their grandchildren and their best friends and it becomes a generational thing because they got to see it without paying $100 a ticket to go do it. So it’s converting people to a lifelong love of the arts, which they then pass down, so it’s a ripple effect.”
Dean noted that Shakespeare by the Sea is the only theater company in California bringing free Shakespeare plays to multiple neighborhoods. While Dean loves other organizations presenting Shakespeare, whether indoors or outdoors in single or fixed locations, she said SBTS is unique. “We are transforming nontraditional spaces …. We come straight into the neighborhoods,” she said, “allowing for the breadth of society to attend these shows together.”
All the World’s a Stage
Stan Tom and his wife, Joni, of Costa Mesa have been attending Shakespeare by the Sea productions since the beginning, when they were living in Long Beach and noticed a flyer in a bookstore for the first play at Point Fermin Park in San Pedro. For the newlyweds, it sounded like a great date night: a picnic dinner in the seaside park while watching a free play. Over the years, they have continued to attend the group’s performances at various locations, bringing their son, dog and friends. “It’s always been a summer ritual for us,” he said.
The couple appreciates Shakespeare’s works, which Tom believes stand the test of time.
“The themes are timeless and they’re relevant because of the questions they pose just like the Greek theater,” he said. “The questions and situations they pose are very human and are adaptable to many different circumstances over many times.”
This is a point not missed by Shakespeare by the Sea’s team.
“Somebody told me once that the Shakespeare canon encompasses the entirety of the human experience and I agree with that,” Coltrin said. “Did he talk about text messages? No, of course not. Did he talk about letters that are missed that create miscommunication that cause catastrophic consequences? Yep. I have yet to find a parallel modern experience that Shakespeare didn’t address in some way. And I think that’s why people connect with it so deeply.”
And Shakespeare by the Sea makes the plays accessible for a general audience, making sure they’re not too long and keeping them easy to understand, Tom said.
“It’s not a strict interpretation – literal word-for-word interpretation – of Shakespeare’s works. It’s a little bit more streamlined for a general audience,” he said.
Tom said he and his wife contribute several hundred dollars a year to the organization, adding that it’s vital to support the arts in your community. Notably, he and his wife both worked at art museums early in their careers. He now does IT work in the medical device industry and she decided to stay home after their son was born due to child care costs, but the arts remain a priority for them.
“This is an opportunity for the people in stage craft, not just stage actors, but those you don’t usually see like sound and lighting design, costuming – you have to get a start somewhere and this is a great chance for folks in theater arts to get some experience,” he said. “I think it’s important to support that.”
Dean noted that last year, more than 1,200 people applied to be an actor in the program. In the end, only 16 actors were hired to perform in two productions, with most of them assuming roles in both plays. Dean said these are mostly mid-career professional artists but also some new artists, often including a college student. Additionally, there are designers for sets, props, costumes and sound as well as stage managers and directors.
Bringing the Bard to Life
Shakespeare by the Sea was started in 1998 by Lisa Coffi, then a graduate student at California State University, Long Beach, in the theater production and management program. For her thesis project, she wanted to organize a free festival in a park. She searched around L.A. and Orange counties, finally stumbling across San Pedro’s Point Fermin Park with a largely unused bandshell stage. After receiving permission, Coffi produced six performances of “The Comedy of Errors” over two weekends there.
“They didn’t think anybody would come,” Dean said. “Everybody in the city of Los Angeles said ‘You’re crazy. That park is dangerous …. Who cares about Shakespeare?’ Three thousand people showed up for a program that had never happened before in a location where they had never had Shakespeare before, just through the little grassroots marketing promotion. And that was the start of it. So, of course, she finished her master’s and decided, ‘I have to keep doing this.’ It has grown to be the biggest, broadest free Shakespeare tour in the West Coast.”
Coffi retired in 2022, turning over the program to Dean and Coltrin as co-artistic directors when she left. Dean had joined the group’s education program in 1999 and then became development director in 2000 because she also worked in the film industry and had experience raising money. Coltrin joined in 2010 when she met Dean while doing a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” elsewhere. Dean said Shakespeare by the Sea needed a director and asked if Coltrin would like to fill the position, which she did, later taking a senior leadership role in 2012.
Moving beyond San Pedro and the rest of the South Bay, the organization began performing in Orange County early on. The first O.C. venue was Grant Howald Park in Corona del Mar.
“Newport Beach was one of our earliest locations. We haven’t been there in many years and we would love to go back. It’s just a matter of do they have funding,” Dean said, adding that the city was no longer able to help cover the cost.
“We usually ask the cities for at least 60%,” Coltrin added. “The idea is that they will also help us market that event and put us in touch with other community leaders that might be interested in sponsoring …. So that’s one of the reasons we may have to reduce our tour also because city budgets have been cut as well.”
Another option is for an individual to sponsor the group’s performance. That’s what happened in Rossmoor. “A former resident in Orange County – in Rossmoor/Los Alamitos – brought us there herself,” Dean recalled. “She loved the program that she had experienced year after year in San Pedro and she just said, ‘You have to come here.’ ” For several years, she provided the majority of the funding until the city finally decided to help support it as well.
In addition to the cities of Rossmoor, Aliso Viejo and Mission Viejo, where Shakespeare by the Sea performed in 2025, other O.C. locales have been on the schedule in previous years. Santa Ana was on the docket for many years, but last season the city leaders decided to do something else with their summer programming, so they opted to take a year off.
“In the past, we also did … Irvine and Newport Beach and we used to go to Laguna Niguel for many years,” Dean said. “And the only reason these cities dropped off is they said we can’t afford it or we don’t have money for this year … or we’re just changing our summer programming. If a community wants a music series instead of Shakespeare, then there’s a shift that happens.”
Notably, 14% of the people in the mailing database for Shakespeare by the Sea live in Orange County, Dean reported. “So, of the 27,000 records that we have, almost 4,000 of them are Orange County addresses,” she said. “That’s a significant amount of people, especially when our season of say 19 locations that we go to, maybe four of them are in Orange County.”
Coltrin said in addition to individuals making donations, community advocacy can also help.
“Talk to your parks department, talk to your city council members. Send an email and say, ‘If you don’t know about this, this is a great thing that I attend every year. Can we have this in our community?’ And that really helps,” Coltrin said. “And that encourages funding if they know that their constituents are asking for something …. That helps to make it a bigger priority in the budget.”
In some cities, residents ask businesses to donate enough money to bring the troupe to a local park.
“So it’s not just a single person who has enough money, who’s affluent enough to say I’m going to pay for it,” Dean said. “It’s grassroots solicitation and they go door to door to their businesses … and together, collectively, they’ve been able to bring us back to their cities if the government is not able to provide some funding.”
Shakespeare by the Sea also has under its umbrella the Little Fish Theatre, a year-round program producing contemporary theater. Admission is charged for the approximately six productions presented annually in a 50-seat Redondo Beach theater, which has been the group’s home – and provides storage for Shakespeare by the Sea’s sets, costumes and props – since 2024 after losing its San Pedro building the previous year.
“We’re going to have another challenge coming up in 2027 because the building that we’re in … is a temporary location, so that building is also going to go away next year,” said Coltrin, who with Dean, also serves as co-artistic director for Little Fish Theatre.
Co-founded by Dean, Coffi and other company members in 2003, Little Fish Theatre also has a deficit. “So, simultaneously, we are faced with making a decision very soon about Little Fish Theatre – is there going to be any programming after May?” Dean said, noting that productions are scheduled through that month.
While they support theater in general, Shakespeare has a special place in Dean and Coltrin’s hearts.
“I believe in the humanity of it,” Dean said. “I believe it’s important. Obviously the language is beautiful, but it is about story and I love this idea of gathering people in a sacred space to have an emotional and intellectual encounter with language, ideas, life-affirming humanity – all the messy bits and the lovely bits of humans in conflict with each other and in union with each other – and I think Shakespeare provides that in a universal way that other playwrights don’t …. And it’s important that this work is done in … different communities, bringing people together.”
