The Coachella Valley is blessed with both great theater companies and a lot of theater fans—and as a love for the arts grows in the community, the best local arts organizations must grow as well.
For 16 years, Dezart Performs has been one of the Coachella Valley’s most-respected theater companies. Producing everything from new works to classic productions, Dezart has made good on its mission statement to “enrich the life and culture of (the) community.” Dezart has expanded from humble beginnings at the Dezart One Gallery in the Backstreet Art District to sold-out runs at its current home, the Pearl McManus Theater at the Palm Springs Woman’s Club—and Dezart needs to grow yet again.
In December 2023, Dezart announced a $3.2 million fundraising campaign to open a new theater at Canyon Plaza South, at 67555 E. Palm Canyon Drive, in Cathedral City. The goal of “Next Stage Campaign” is to raise $2.2 million to develop the new space, dubbed the Dezart Playhouse, as well as $1 million for operating costs. A new, versatile performance space will allow Dezart to build upon its already impressive productions, while fostering a hub for community art and interaction.
During a recent phone interview with Michael Shaw, Dezart’s co-founder and artistic director, he said the organization has thus far raised more than a third of the funds.
“The goal still is to open in the season 2025-2026, and our budget is currently at $2.2 million,” Shaw said. “We went public on Dec. 5, but the campaign is almost two years old. There’s the silent phase of a capital campaign like this, where you’re going to your larger prospective donors to kickstart the campaign, and we were in a silent phase for well over a year before we went public with it. Since we began that silent phase, numbers have grown in terms of budget and cost factors … because inflation has had an impact on our original numbers. … Infrastructure is always going to be your biggest expense in terms of turning a space into a theater, because a retail space is not built to occupy 125 to 150 people for a two-hour period.”
No matter where Dezart Performs has been housed, or how many seats were in the theater, Shaw said his goal has always been the same.
“My mission from the very beginning was to bring newer plays, more contemporary work, to the valley,” Shaw said. “Some people have coined us as the ‘off-Broadway of Palm Springs,’ but we do a number of Broadway-produced pieces as well. Our audience and our company have grown dramatically just in the last seven, eight years. … My goal has always been to bring stuff that might be played in larger markets—Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, San Francisco—here to the valley so people don’t have to travel to those other regions to see really good theater.”
Shaw pointed out that Dezart is one of only two Equity-sanctioned companies in the Coachella Valley; CVRep is the other.
“We employ Equity Union-based actors as well as local talent and non-union talent,” he said. “We’ve done a number of world premieres and West Coast premieres over the years. Our latest piece, A Case for the Existence of God, was the latest play from Samuel D. Hunter, who wrote The Whale. We had the pleasure of hosting him for the opening weekend, and he was here for a Q&A. Our second play of the season, What the Constitution Means to Me, was a Tony-nominated play that was on Broadway in 2018, and that broke all of our records in 16 years. That was the most- attended show we’ve ever had, and then A Case for the Existence of God is now our second-largest-attended play in 16 years.”
COVID-19 hit the industry hard, wiping out some theater companies. Shaw explained how Dezart was able to pull through.
“The support of the community—and obviously state funding and government funding—helped us weather that storm,” Shaw said. “We’ve actually come back stronger than ever, as you can tell from our ticket sales. We continue to garner a lot of critical acclaim for the kind of work that we’re doing and the level of talent that we’re bringing to the valley. We’re technically a small professional team; that’s the status that we hold with Equity, which means we’re under 250 seats, and we’re just busting at the seams. Constitution ran at about 115% of capacity, which means we sold out and then oversold every show. Our 83 seats are just not enough, so we just keep adding rows and seats—and then truly standing room-only is what we are encountering right now.”
Shaw said he’s dreamed of Dezart having its own, new space for more than five years.
“We rent the space that we’re in now at the Woman’s Club, and it has served us incredibly well for 13 years,” he said. We’re clearly in need of a larger space … that we can grow into. The hope is that it’ll be 125 to 150 seats. At the Woman’s Club, there have been two theater companies in tandem running there at any given time over the years. There was a time when the two of us were juggling schedules between the two companies. … It’s clear that we obviously need our own space. It also allows us the flexibility that we need, as we don’t have the flexibility when you’re a tenant in a space like the Woman’s Club, which is used as a community space as well.”
“I want the audience to come early, and I want them to stay late. … In the new space, people won’t feel like they have to be pushed out of the theater.”
Michael Shaw, Dezart Performs’ artistic director
Shaw envisions the Dezart Playhouse as having an “inviting lobby” that can develop camaraderie between audiences and performers.
“I want the audience to come early, and I want them to stay late,” he said. “In some theaters in Chicago, you go and you have a drink at the bar, or you grab a quick bite at the restaurant next door, and then you go in and see the show, and then you walk out of the theater and go straight to the bar in the lobby, and you meet the cast there, and you hang out for another hour and a half talking about the show. I want to create that experience for our patrons. … After Constitution, people hung out for 30 minutes to an hour after the show with the cast. In the new space, people won’t feel like they have to be pushed out of the theater.”
Shaw also intends for Dezart’s new space to be used by other community members.
“We want to make sure that the space is also flexible, to be used by other organizations,” Shaw said. “There is a lot of music here in the valley, and right now, they go to small, little spaces, and makeshift spaces with a microphone and a light and a couple of tables, and they sing. I want to be able to create a space that people can come and say, ‘We want to do Tuesday nights in your new playhouse’—and the seating of the new place will be very flexible. We can have 125 seats, or we can clear that out, and we’ll have two tops and chairs, cafe tables, and you can grab a drink at the bar and go into the theater and sit and watch comedy or watch cabaret.”
Cathedral City is turning into an arts hub. The Dezart Playhouse space is just down the street from the CVRep Playhouse, and the downtown area hosts a variety of festivals and events on a regular basis.
“I live in Palm Springs. Palm Springs is my home, we’ve seen this renaissance happening,” Shaw said. “There is a very strong theater community in Palm Springs, but Palm Springs is noted for its tourism … The energy is incredible, but I don’t always run into people who are friends and family who I know. I run into people all the time in Cathedral City. … If we can be a part of that, I’m excited.”
Learn more at dezartperforms.org/next-stage-campaign.