La Jolla Playhouse on Thursday unveiled its full programming for the 2026 WOW Festival, which will take place April 23-26 on the campus of UC San Diego in La Jolla.
The latest iteration of WOW (formerly known as the Without Walls Festival) will feature dozens of theater, dance, music, puppetry, and spectacle events, each persented multiple times, in and around the university’s theater district, where La Jolla Playhouse has been headquartered since 1983. This year’s lineup includes local, national and international performers.
The Playhouse debuted WOW in 2011, with 20 site-specific, interactive shows and “happenings” on the UCSD campus. Conceived by former Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley, the fest started out being offered every other year at different locations around San Diego. It transitioned to an annual event in 2022 and settled permanently at UCSD in 2024.
“Handle with Care” by Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed theater collective will be presented at La Jolla Playhouse’s 2026 WOW Festival in April. (Ontroerend Goed)
As in past years, admission to the 2026 festival and most of its shows will be free of charge. A few shows will be ticketed, with prices ranging from $10 to $29. Many shows require no reservations to attend, but some require advance booking. Due to high public interest in the festival, advance reservations are recommended.
“We are thrilled to once again present this joyous artistic celebration in partnership with UC San Diego!,” said Eric Keen Louie, La Jolla Playhouse’s artistic producing director, in a statement. “Where else can you spend four days going from a brass band marching with its own cheer section, to a vertical circus, to a crowd-created choir, to immersive and interactive experiences the whole family canive into – and almost all of it free? That range isn’t accidental. It’s the whole mission of WOW: that art has no single shape – and neither does an audience.”
Here’s a brief overview of this year’s festival acts, listed in alphabetical order. An expanded story and guide will be published in the San Diego Union-Tribune Arts section on April 19.
Additional show details, times, dates, locations reservations and ticket details are now available at wowfestival.org.
Animal Cracker Conspiracy performs a puppet theater show. The company will present Adult Puppet Cabaret, a show for grown-ups, at La Jolla Playhouse’s 2026 WOW Festival in April. (Animal Cracker Conspiracy)
Adult Puppet Cabaret by Animal Cracker Conspiracy
This San Diego-based audience-interactive poetry-theater troupe has performed family-friendly parades and shows at WOW for many years. But this year, it’s planning an adults-only puppet show inspired by the saucy world of Parisian cabaret. $21.
“Again! Again!” by Mister and Mischief
The Los Angeles duo of actor/director/playwrights Andy and Jeff Crocker returns to WOW with performer Tiffany Ogburn for a show that mixes gaming, clowning and stories inspired by their own experiences with the work-life-art balancing act. They’ll present joyful chaos as they re-create the juggling act of household chores, parenting, writing plays and much more. $25.
“Carry On” by Cie Presque Siamoises
This French performance troupe presents a participatory performance on parenthood. Co-created with local parents and their young children, the show explores the joys and impermanence of raising children, carrying children through life and witnessing a child’s journey. Free.
Choir! Choir! Choir! By Daveed Goldman and Nobu Adilman
Presented by ArtPower at UCSD in a return performance, this Canadian show is an interactive show where audience members become singers. Free.
“Colorín, Colorado” by La Jolla Playhouse POP Tour
Since 1987, the Playhouse has offered original plays for young audiences that are presented at local schools, libraries and community centers. This year’s POP Tour play is about Georgie, a shy 4th-grader who explores her musical talents by bringing to life a story about her sickly grandfather. Free
DeepFake by 404 Theater
The Denver-based ensemble 404 Theater company presents this immersive show for an audience of one who becomes an employee of an AI company. They must argue with their bosses over a potentially invasive product the company is planning to roll out. $21.
Fool’s Gold: A Trickster Review
Created through the San Diego Unified Honors Theatre Project with La Jolla Playhouse, this play reimagines and re-creates the fabled race between the tortoise and hare. As the race unfolds in real time, there are collisions, sabotage, surprises, comedy and more. Free.
“Handle with Care” by Ontroerend Goed
This Belgian immersive theater company involves a group of audience members seated around an unopened box at the center of the stage. What’s inside the box, who will open it, and how does its contents impact and involve everyone there? $25.
“[IMAGE DESCRIPTION]” by Drew Petersen
This New York performance artist will present a cathartic lecture and live dissertation on a fictitious relationship, that explores objectivity and subjectivity in how we perceive things with our eyes. The story explores the distance between a captured image and alived experience and the surrealness we encounter every day in our lives and pictures. Free.
“Jam Side Up!” by the Kif-Kif Sisters
The physical theater duo of Montreal-raised identical twins Françoise and Josette, who have been performing together for many years, presents a wacky stage show featuring comedy, stories, acrobatics, dance and exploding vegetables. Free/
“Karaoke Dreams” by Blindspot Collective
This San Diego site-specific performance company returns to WOW with a show it premiered on the UCSD campus last year. Written and directed by Blake McCarty, “Karaoke Dreams” is set in a karaoke bar, where regulars come together to experience life, love, loss, heartbreak, new chances, which unfold in between karaoke performances of songs by Pink, Queen, Rihanna, One Direction and more. $21.
“LAMP” by ArtBuilds
This San Diego group, founded by four UC San Diego faculty members, creates participatory light installations. LAMP, which debuted at San Diego Youtopia last year. invites the public to rest on pillows and interact with illuminated and synchronized light display and sound experiences. Free.
Light Lane by LeMonde Studio
This Canadian kinetic installation company invites the public to climb aboard bicycle-like light boxes that convert pedal power into light, music, projections and more. Free.
“Message in a Bauble” by Enemies of Time
A fringe festival favorite from the Berkeley-based theater company Enemies of Time, the audience-interactive show begins when audience members collect a bauble from a vending machine. Inside is a phone number that teams can text to meet EDIN, who is trapped inside a machine and needs help to escape before the apocalypse arrives. Free.
“Molly Went Missing” workshop by Enemies of Time
The Berkeley troupe is also developing this new show in a WOW workshop that’s open to the public. It’s about the ghost of 6-year-old Molly Ward, who died in a hotel room in 1978. Seeking help, her spirit, in the form of a noisy poltergeist, interrupts a haunted hotel history tour. Free but reservations are required.
“Mucca Pazza Plays Around” by Mucca Pazza
This Chicago-based ensemble, which bills itself as a circus punk marching band, will play, wander about and interact with whatever and whoever they encounter. Free.
“My Body’s Wake” by Sensory Dimensions
This New York duo of Case Hall-Landers and Elicia Neo present this tender exploration of disability through body painting, dance, violin, projections and sound that’s inspired by their own lived experiences of grief, isolation, anger and chronic pain. Free but reservations are required.
“Night Watch” by Bee’s Knees
Audience members climb into a nine-foot cargo van where they’re assigned tasks as night-shift surveillance workers, watching video monitors where an interactive analog horror story gradually unfolds. The Los Angeles-born show was created by immersive and theme park designers. $29.
Out of Body Expo by Freak Nature Puppets
This Los Angeles-based artist collective will present an immersive outdoor theater event where ramshackle do-it-yourself cardboard and foam puppets will attempt to achieve world peace. Free.
The San Diego percussion-theater ensemble DrumatiX will perform at La Jolla Playhouse’s 2026 WOW Festival in April. (DrumatiX)
Rhythm Delivered by DrumatiX
This San Diego percussion performance group will presents a family-friendly, six-person show that blends tap dance, body percussion and drumming on buckets, boxes, crates, household items, and plastic tubes. Free.
Sung Forests By Project [BLANK]
This San Diego experimental music and arts company will present a concert where a singer in a magnolia tree grove will have her voice fed into a purpose-built sound system that receives, suspends and transforms the sound with feedback loops and echoes. Free.
FORCE, an acrobatic theater troupe from South Korea, will perform “Suzik,” a show about human connection, at La Jolla Playhouse’s 2026 WOW Festival in April. (GoGuMa)
Suzik by FORCE
South Korean’s FORCE company will perform acrobatics and interact with each other on a series of vertical poles. Free.
“Tea Party at the End of the World” by IKantKoan Play/s
This Philadelphia interactive theater company will host this interactive play by Jessica Creane, where an intimate tea party with parlor games is presented as the apocalypse approaches. Creane based the play on her experiences as an artist in residence in the Arctic Circle, where global warming is rapidly transforming the environment. $25 (includes tea service).
“Terra Firma” by Sandra Portal-Andreu
Created by Miami-based choreographer Portal Andreu in collaboration with Betty Osceola of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, this solo dance and spoken-word performance celebrates the tribe’s history, celebrations, rituals and their relationship with the land. Free.
“With Honors” by Jesca Prudencia
San Diego playwright/director Prudencia created this feel-good ceremonial dance party experience where the audience experiences a graduation. It will be performed by dancers, singers and a live DJ and the audience members are the guests of honor. Free