Z Space empowers artistic risk.
Z Space empowers artistic risk, collaboration, and camaraderie amongst artists, audience, and community in the service of creating, developing, and presenting new work. Operating out of an old can factory in the Mission District of San Francisco, Z Space now activates two venues, an 85-seat intimate theater and a 236-seat flexible performance space, with a warehouse aesthetic and an adventurous edge. Eschewing traditional theater models with fixed seasons and a singular artistic vision, Z Space strives to embrace a multitude of artistic voices through a variety of programs and partnerships.
Keystone initiatives include New Work, a development, production, and presentation program that supports artists and ensembles from conception to realization of unique works; Word for Word, a resident performing arts company that transforms works of literature verbatim to the stage; Youth Arts, an arts education program promoting literacy and creativity; the Curated Rental Program, which opens our venues for use by a variety of artists and arts groups; and the Residency Program which provide an artistic home for artists and organizations in search of growth and community as they develop their artistic voice. Annually, we reach approximately 22,000 audience members, 800 youth and children through Youth Arts, and approximately 50 small and mid-size arts organizations.
HISTORY
In 1993, David Dower founded Z Space to support a large and evolving community of theater artists working together in the Bay Area. As Artists in Residence, Word for Word was founded alongside Z Space by Susan Harloe and JoAnne Winter (click here to read more about the history of Word for Word). Z Space has become one of the nation’s leading laboratories for developing new voices, new works, and new opportunities in American theater. Throughout the 90s and early 00s, Z Space was privileged to work with such luminaries as Josh Kornbluth, Anne Galjour, Randall Wong, and Brian Thorstensen.
Lisa Steindler joined Z Space in 2005 as New Works Director and led as Executive Artistic Director from 2007 to 2021. Her vision and efforts were to establish “a hub for artists of all stripes to rehearse, perform, and exhibit their work while engaging our audiences with the best of Bay Area and national artistry.” Under Steindler’s leadership, Z Space leased a theater space for the first time and moved into the former Theatre Artaud in 2009 (read more about Project Artaud and the history of our building here). Since then, Z Space has become a unique hybrid organization that focuses equally on producing, presenting, and developing new work. In 2013, Z Space expanded into Z Below (formerly The Traveling Jewish Theatre), an 85-seat complement to the 236-seat warehouse above.
Over the past decade, Z Space has built a national reputation for developing and producing large-scale new works that reimagine the traditional “musical theater” form, receiving critical acclaim for Hundred Days (The Bengsons), The Lucky Ones (The Bengsons), Weightless (The Kilbanes) and most recently The Red Shades: A Trans Superhero Rock Opera (Adriene Price).
Z Space is committed to reimagining leadership models that both diversify who is in leadership positions and reimagine organizational and cross organizational structures that work as coordinated and cooperative systems of partnership. In 2021, Z Space introduced our distributed leadership model with Shafer Mazow taking on the role as Executive Director (formerly Managing Director) and Rose Oser in the role of Interim Producing Director (formerly Associate Artistic Director). Mr. Mazow made history as the first openly transgender executive leader in the American Theater. After an extensive search, Nikki Meñez joined as Curatorial Director in January 2022 rounding out our three person executive team.
Interim Producing Director, Rose Oser stepped down in November 2022 as planned. As Z Space moves forward out of the pandemic, we are hiring administrative and program roles to build back to pre-pandemic capacity and are reimagining what producing new work at Z Space will look like. We will begin our search for a new Producing Director in early 2025 with our Curatorial Director and Executive Director splitting producing duties in 2024.
Some of the Bay Area’s quintessential arts and cultural organizations make Z Space their performance home through our Curated Rental and Residency Programs: Thrillride Mechanics, Sean Dorsey Dance, Fresh Meat Productions, 3 Girls Theatre, Theatre Bay Area, and David Herrera Performance Company, to name a few. We serve these diverse artistic communities—including but not limited to queer/trans, racial minorities, and people with disabilities—because we believe it is essential for the arts ecosystem to reflect the diversity of the San Francisco Bay Area. We meet the needs of our community by providing free and/or heavily subsidized rental space through our Subspace program, supplying artists with an extra week in our space to experiment, play, and develop their ideas in our fully equipped theater through our Technical Development Residency program, and ensuring that all of our venues and facilities are welcoming and accessible.
