Live, Intimate, Local Theatre That Challenges and Inspires

At Aurora Theatre Company’s Alafi Auditorium, no audience member is more than 15 feet away from the stage. They all share in the laughter, tears, or gasps of surprise at each intimate performance.

For theater-goers, that experience is magic. 

“Humans understand the world through stories – stories are always more meaningful than facts. It’s just the way our brains are wired,” says Josh Costello, the Aurora’s artistic director. “The opportunity to come together with your community, in the same room, and experience a story together, it’s a powerful experience and it makes communities stronger.”

Aurora Theatre Company has been dedicated to the visceral power of live theater for 32 years. It is known for presenting groundbreaking, acclaimed work and as a home for developing contemporary theater and new plays. Their new works incubator, Originate+Generate, provides space and support for local artists to create. Jonathan Spector debuted the highly acclaimed Eureka Day at Aurora Theatre, a sharp-witted comedy exploring progressive ideals and mandatory vaccinations at a Bay Area children’s school, which went on to be performed worldwide. 

The theater’s productions aim to tell a diverse set of stories that are relevant to the current moment while nurturing local talent, by hiring local actors and stage artists and paying union wages to all. Half of their typically five-play season is dedicated to works written by women and playwrights of color. Recent productions include Paradise Blue and Detroit ‘67 from Dominique Morisseau’s Detroit Project, and Manahatta, the story of a young Lenape woman working as a securities trader on Wall Street in her ancestral land of Manahatta. Their work challenges preconceived ideas and is designed to not only entertain but to broaden audiences’ viewpoints.

“We’re not just a museum putting on great plays of the past,” says Costello. “We are really the type of place where people are having a conversation about what’s happening right now.” 

Aurora premiered Dustin Chin’s Colonialism is Terrible, But Pho is Delicious, a play about colonialism, food, and the Asian experience. An excited Asian community came together to see a story that reflected their experience onstage – something that doesn’t happen often – and stayed for after-performance discussions that included AAPI Youth Rising, an organization fighting anti-Asian hate. These types of community partnerships help create a synergy between art and the community that is integral to Aurora’s mission. 

“I think a strong community needs theaters and it needs artists. And what’s particularly special about working with local artists is that we are telling stories that are personally meaningful to us,” says Costello. “Those stories are authentic and meaningful personally to the audience as well… We are the community telling its own stories.”