La Jolla Playhouse is hitting the road with its technical theater training — literally.
The institution recently announced a new mobile program that will transport hands-on technical theatrical training into the community at schools, juvenile detention facilities, community centers and other youth- and military-serving organizations across San Diego County.
The technical theater program has been in operation since 2014, serving more than 400 students in that span in fields such as lighting, props and sound. Yet its reach could go only so far because of limited theater time and space and factors such as some schools and groups not being able to visit the playhouse.
“We have 25 unique programs in our learning and engagement department, and a lot of them are actually out and about in our community,” said Bridget Cavaiola Stone, La Jolla Playhouse’s director of learning and engagement. “But since technical theater requires so much more stuff …being proximal to the playhouse was optimal in the past.”
Now there is a van to take that “stuff” on the road.
Bridget Cavaiola Stone is La Jolla Playhouse’s director of learning and engagement. (La Jolla Playhouse)
“It’s a big lift in terms of the logistics,” Cavaiola Stone said. “And we wanted it to be something that looked exciting and felt like we were bringing the backstage of a theater to a school.”
The vehicle, funded through a Parker Foundation grant, is wrapped in branding for La Jolla Playhouse and further decorated by Show Imaging Inc.
The Tech Theatre Mobile Lab made its debut at the playhouse’s 2026 WOW Festival in April at UC San Diego. It was a natural fit, Cavaiola Stone said, as the festival focuses on out-of-the-box thinking.
Now, the mobile program is in its “soft launch” phase ahead of a full rollout in early 2027. Its first focus will be on the county’s Juvenile Court and Community Schools, with hopes to reach additional schools and community centers later this year.
Once it is fully up and running, the program’s students will participate in one-hour or half-day sessions exploring costumes, lighting, set design, construction, props and sound design.
The lab will include storage for tools and materials, theatrical features and multimedia components to enable students to explore playhouse productions and creative processes.
Sessions will be led by trained teaching artists with support from La Jolla Playhouse staff.
The Tech Theatre Mobile Lab will be booked through existing partnerships with the San Diego Unified School District, county groups and online requests. It is intended primarily for schools and communities considered underserved.
Cavaiola Stone laid out what a successful program would look like for the playhouse.
“It’s very challenging to track what happens to a student sometimes after they engage with us, especially if they’re in a vulnerable state when we meet them,” she said. “I think immediate success looks like … young people being creative and collaborative and supportive of each other in a learning environment that is fun and is supportive of taking successful, safe risks.
“The goal of the program, historically, has been about exposure to the arts, finding joy in the arts and also sharing with young people that there are career pathways in the arts and in the entertainment industry that they may not have been aware of before. Seeing the connections the students made here at La Jolla Playhouse, we’ve been dreaming up for quite awhile a way to get this program out into the community.”
Funding to help start and sustain the program came in multi-year grants from the Capdevila Gillespie Foundation and U.S. Bank Foundation. Further funding was from the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Impact & Exploration Fund, Day for Change and the Samuel H. French and Katherine Weaver French Fund.
To learn more, visit lajollaplayhouse.org/learningandengagement/tech-theatre-mobile-lab. ♦