BroadStage at Santa Monica College has announced its 2025/26 performing arts season, featuring Broadway stars, comedy legends and the launch of a new international jazz festival, all planned while the venue served as a community relief center during recent wildfire emergencies.
The season lineup includes Broadway performer Mandy Gonzalez, comedy veterans Kevin Nealon and Dominique, holiday performances by Jane Lynch and the LA Master Chorale, and dance companies Parsons Dance and Jacob Jonas The Company. The announcement comes as BroadStage expands its mission under Artistic and Executive Director Rob Bailis to better reflect the diverse Santa Monica community.
"We built this season while our parking lot was being used as a temporary command post for the many fire departments battling the Palisades fire," Bailis said. "We built this season while our Music Hall was being used as a FEMA relief counseling center."
The season's centerpiece will be the inaugural Santa Monica International Jazz Festival in May 2026, created by jazz legend and BroadStage Artist in Residence Stanley Clarke. The festival aims to establish Santa Monica as a destination for jazz performances in an iconic beachside setting.
BroadStage, established in 2008 as part of Santa Monica College, operates three venues at the SMC Performing Arts Center: the 500-seat Mainstage, the 100-seat black box Edye theater, and the versatile East Wing indoor/outdoor space. As a flagship of Santa Monica College, which serves as a Hispanic Serving Institution with more than 33,000 students, BroadStage connects performing arts to educational goals while serving Los Angeles County's diverse communities.
BroadStage gathers artists, thinkers, and audiences to celebrate our shared humanity and expand the role the arts play in the vitality of our diverse community.
Under Bailis' leadership, BroadStage has acknowledged that its audiences have not historically reflected the array of identities and experiences in Santa Monica and surrounding areas. The venue now actively invites intergenerational audiences encompassing all gender identities, varied socioeconomic backgrounds, and people of all abilities.
"This is a season about resilience, resistance, joy, laughter, agony, and compassion," Bailis said. "We are bringing it all this year – laughter, challenge, support, sleight of hand, high velocity physicality, and music."
The 2025/26 season also features actor Patrick Page in "All The Devils Are Here," rising talents including Camila Fernández and the Julia Keefe Jazz Ensemble, and dance company Ragamala. Popular series returning include The Celebrity Series, National Geographic Live, blackbox programming, and Sunday Morning Music/Santa Monica.
Santa Monica's cultural ecosystem benefits from its proximity to the greater Los Angeles area and its fluid population that triples daily due to commuting workers. BroadStage recognizes the many communities that have shaped Santa Monica into its current status as a creative center and tourist destination.
The planning of this season occurred during extraordinary circumstances, with federal arts funding facing what Bailis called "its greatest crisis since 1990, when the infamous NEA Four were canceled over the content of their art."
"We built this season to celebrate that which gets us through the most challenging of times together," Bailis said. "We have stories to soothe, to satisfy, to provoke, and more and more laughter, and more and more joy – to fortify us, to see us through."
Tickets and subscriptions are currently available to Priority Members with donations of $1,000 or more. All members with contributions of $125 or more can purchase tickets starting June 24 at noon PT, with general public sales beginning July 1 at noon PT.
Subscription packages offer up to 20 percent savings, with 15 percent discounts for three to four shows and 20 percent savings for five or more performances, plus free standard ticket exchanges.
BroadStage is located at The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center.
