Company Information
Our Mission
6th Street Playhouse creates professional-quality theatre and programs that spark creativity, foster collaboration, and bring people together. We inspire and educate Sonoma County’s diverse community while being a prominent voice in Sonoma County Theater by engaging audiences, forming public and private partnerships, and supporting all artists through compassion, respect, and coherent leadership of a vibrant institution.
Our 6th Street Studio Education Program provides an empowering, accessible, and inclusive educational environment where students of all backgrounds and abilities can express themselves, explore ideas, and grow through the theatre arts—nurturing imagination, empathy, and community through collaboration and play.
Our History
In 2004, a new partnership reunited the Santa Rosa Players and Actors Theatre under one board of directors. Now merged under the name 6th Street Playhouse, together they renovated the 107-year-old Del Monte Cannery. It opened to sellout crowds in February 2005 with the production of Mame.
6th Street Playhouse has received the City of Santa Rosa Award for Cultural Enrichment and the Sonoma County Historical Society Award for Preservation of a Historical Building.
Our Vision
6th Street Playhouse strives to be the North Bay’s leading destination for bold, meaningful theatre, championing creativity, inclusivity, and artistic excellence while building a collaborative community of artists, educators, and patrons. Our artistic vision focuses on building meaningful social service partnerships, enhancing theatre accessibility, and delivering impactful performances. 6th Street Studio envisions students gaining confidence, creativity, and communication skills while discovering the joy of collaboration and self-expression in a supportive space where learning and connection thrive.
Our Core Values
1. Creativity & Artistic Excellence: We believe in imaginative storytelling and high artistic standards that inspire, challenge, and foster a lifelong love of live theatre. We honor artistry that engages audiences, challenges expectations, and fosters lifelong appreciation for live performance.
2. Inclusive Community Engagement: We cultivate a welcoming environment that reflects the diversity of Sonoma County. Through our volunteers, community partnerships, and accessible education offerings, we strengthen connections across community organizations, as well as cultures, and backgrounds. We are committed to our community, creating space for all voices to participate and thrive. We actively partner with other non-profits to share our talents and assets to the greater good of community.
3. Collaboration & Shared Experience From artists and crew to educators, students, board members, and patrons, we nurture respectful collaboration and shared purpose. We work with each other, with community organizations, and with supporters — to build memorable experiences that bring people together and make art a collective adventure. Together, we shape a community where creativity grows through teamwork and mutual support.
The Former Companies
Santa Rosa Players (SRP) is Sonoma County’s oldest community theatre company. Twenty-three theatre-loving community members, who had been performing yearly in Memorial Hospital’s fund-raising event “The Hi-Fever Folllies”, were eager to bring live theatre to the community on a more regular basis. They formed the Santa Rosa Players, and were granted status as a non-profit corporation in 1972. The Santa Rosa Players performed in various arenas including the El Rancho Motel’s Tropicana Room, the Flamingo Hotel, and the Sonoma County Fairgrounds Arts and Crafts Building. In 1977, the Santa Rosa Players moved into the Lincoln Arts Center at Seventh and Davis Streets after converting the gymnasium/auditorium into Santa Rosa’s first theatre complex. They occupied and managed the 250-seat theatre in the Lincoln Arts Center until the Kid Street Learning Center took possession of the building in 2001. Santa Rosa Players then moved to the Merlo Theatre at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts.
Actors Theatre (AT) was founded in 1984 by local actors, most of them members of the Santa Rosa Players wishing to produce edgy, contemporary dramas. Actors Theatre opened its first production, Nuts, in a storefront at the Brickyard Shopping Center in Santa Rosa. Encouraged by the astonishing critical and popular success of Nuts, the group incorporated as Actors Theatre of Sonoma County, a non-profit organization, in August, 1984. In 1996, Actors Theatre moved to the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts.