The Theatre Program, commonly known as Samohi Theatre, is the school’s drama and musical-theatre program, offering classes and productions in acting, musical theatre and technical theatre. Students participate in a full season of plays, musicals and student-created performances, with productions staged in the intimate 200-seat Humanities Center Theatre as well as historic Barnum Hall. The program also competes in Drama Teachers Association of Southern California festivals and presents Public Domain, an annual cabaret-style showcase featuring student-directed and student-performed work. Today the program is led by theatre director Kate Barraza, who has taught and directed at Samohi since the early 2010s.

For much of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Samohi Theatre was led by Dr. Frank X. Ford, who joined the school around 1984 and directed the program for more than two decades. Under Ford, Samohi maintained an unusually ambitious production schedule that included classic drama, contemporary plays and large-scale musicals. By 2005, the program was producing as many as seven plays and musicals in a season and worked closely with the Santa Monica Civic Light Opera, a professional/alumni/student partnership also led by Ford. Productions during his tenure included The Music Man, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Guys and Dolls, Annie and other major works. The program has continued that tradition of ambitious student theatre under later directors, combining performance with technical training and participation in regional theatre competitions.

Theatre Program

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