Our Arts Based Workforce Development programs have:

  • Created thousands of summer arts-based employment opportunities for poverty-threshold youth

  • Paid youth more than $2 million in wages 

  • Hired and trained 160 chronically unemployed veterans to crew our productions, paying them more than $500,000 in wages, and providing 2,000 tickets to their families

We have received recognition from the National Youth Employment Coalition, National Summit for Arts Across the Military, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Justice, the National Endowment for the Arts, Actors Equity Association, and NAACP-Los Angeles, among others.

Will Power After School

Our signature youth serving program Will Power After School will continue to provide at-risk youth ages 15-21 with full-time arts-based employment at partner school sites in underserved communities. Students study, create, produce, and perform adaptations of Shakespeare plays under the guidance of trained teaching artists and peer mentors who are program alumni. 

We will partner with Title 1 schools, mostly located within a short distance of SCLA’s headquarters, one of California’s poorest census tracts. SCLA’s ability to pay these youth participants for their time creating art for and with us is extremely important. Without these financial resources, most of our youth would otherwise not be able to participate in our programming and would need to spend those after-school and weekend hours earning income.

Veterans in Art (ViA)

SCLA’s Veterans in Art (ViA) program provides paid vocational training in technical theater arts and life-skills development for high need, honorably discharged U.S. military veterans. Launched in 2013, the program is SCLA’s arts-based transitional employment opportunity for U.S. military veterans who work as venue and scenic crews, audio engineers, wardrobe assistants, ushers, parking attendants, site specific marketers, technical directors, and actors for SCLA’s mainstage professional productions.

SCLA’s 2018 production of Henry IV, featuring Tom Hanks, was built entirely by veterans in the Veterans in Art program.