Who We Are
The Vagabond Players is a 12-year-old self-producing
company of actors, directors, writers, and composers committed to the professional production of quality published and original
theater works of passion, depth, and humor that offer up the various colors of the human experience in which we and our audiences
all share. The Company takes its inspiration and name from the original Vagabond
Players “Little Theatre” company established in the American expatriate community in Paris in 1928. Both Vagabond Players were and are aptly named: the 1928 company performed exclusively in the salons and ateliers of metropolitan Paris; the present Vagabonds mount productions in theaters, libraries, and civic halls while pursuing the
search for a permanent theater home.
What We Do
The common thread linking every play mounted
by the Company is that each sheds some insight into the human condition by presenting situations of conflict (dramatic or
comedic) that matter to the characters and, if realized fully, to an audience. The
Vagabonds hail from various acting traditions, all of which are improvisational-based, and which involve actively
pursuing living truthfully under imaginary circumstances, really listening to and working off each other, and going moment
to unanticipated moment from an identifiable starting place to a clearly different ending place.
Both dramas and comedies are presented. We produce original and published plays. We
invite submissions of original pieces by new or established playwrights. Each
play is reviewed by several Vagabonds, and often given an “in-house” reading when under serious production
consideration. This process culminates in actual formal production.
A production may be a full-length play, or of
a set of one-acts. The plays may have casts of eight actors, or two. Multiple play nights may be of all dramas, or comedies, or combinations, under an umbrella title pointing
out a theme tying all of the pieces together. Runs last six-weeks, two or three
evenings per weekend.
The Vagabonds have conducted
staged readings of original works for the playwrights and audiences to review new material.
Additionally, the Company has performed readings for community groups and charitable organizations, including church
groups and senior citizen centers. As part of the Players’ shared commitment
“giving back” to the community, the Company has donated all proceeds from certain performance nights from most
productions to charities both within and without our industry.
Technically, the Vagabond Players is organized
as a tax-exempt, non-profit corporation under California law. The Players have submitted
an application for a formal “501(c)(3)” non-profit status confirmation with the IRS.
Who Does What You See
As a “self-producing” theater company,
all of the Vagabonds’ work is funded exclusively by box office proceeds, program advertisements,
member dues, and donations from generous people and entities. “Self-producing”
describes the critical involvement of each member in every aspect of the Company’s operations and productions. The Company intentionally keeps its membership small, to maximize each actor’s
opportunities to work, and to have a voice in the entire joint effort. All hands
participate in every aspect of pre-production, line production, art production, you name it, we do it. Meanwhile, the Players continue our ongoing search for a permanent theater home.
