OUR STORY

Our Mission

To unlock self-discovery in young people through the transformative power of theater.

Our Values

At STAGES, we believe in:

• Embracing innovation, imagination, and thoughtful risk-taking.
• Celebrating the unique voice and perspective of every young person.
• Nurturing creativity, curiosity, and artistic growth.
• Building communities rooted in kindness, respect, and belonging.

Our Story

STAGES Youth Theater has changed a lot since we first opened our doors in 2007.

We’ve grown from a small performing arts academy into a nonprofit organization serving thousands of young people through classes, productions, school partnerships, camps, and original theater. We’ve moved, expanded, experimented, asked difficult questions, and embraced opportunities we never could have imagined.

Looking back, our history isn’t just a timeline of milestones. It’s the story of an organization continually learning—from our students, our teaching artists, our partners, and our community. Every step has shaped not only what we do, but why we do it.

Here’s how we got here.

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2007-2008 – Learning by Doing

In 2007, STAGES: The Performing Arts Academy for Kids was founded with encouragement and support from The Little Dolphin School, where we didn’t just rent our first space – we became part of a learning community. Working alongside the excellent early childhood educators at Little Dolphin, we developed weekly programs in music, movement, storytelling, yoga, and imaginative play for children as young as three months old.

Those classrooms became our first laboratory. We learned that the best arts education begins by meeting children where they are, and by listening to the educators who know them best. That spirit of collaboration still shapes every program and every school partnership we build today.

2009 – Designing with Purpose

As STAGES continued to grow, so did our curiosity about how theater could create deeper connections. Most of our work was built around a single production or weekly sessions, but we began wondering what might happen if young people had different types of longer-form opportunities – an entire school year, or across an entire summer – to create, reconnect, and deepen friendships. We didn’t know exactly where those experiments would lead. We simply believed that if we gave relationships more time to grow, something meaningful would happen.

Bringing those ideas to life required more than imagination – it required partners who were willing to grow alongside us. In 2009, Breakwater School invited STAGES to become part of its emerging after-school enrichment program, while St. Lawrence Arts Center became the home for our expanding summer productions. These weren’t simply venue arrangements – they were relationships built on shared possibility. Together, they expanded our visibility, connected us with new communities, and gave us the stability to test ambitious ideas… the beginning of a philosophy that continues to shape STAGES today: our strongest growth has always happened alongside trusted partners.

2010-2015 – Building Artistic Community

In 2010, STAGES relocated to the historic Hutchins School in South Portland, sharing space with Mad Horse Theatre Company, one of Maine’s independent professional theaters. More than a change of address, it marked our entrance into a thriving artistic community (including respected community theaters Lyric Music Theater and Portland Players). During this time, we discovered collaborators, mentors, teachers, designers, directors, and lifelong friends.

Those relationships shaped STAGES for years to come. Ideas, artists, and opportunities flowed freely between organizations, creating an environment where everyone learned from one another. The spirit of collaboration that defined those years continues to influence how we teach, create, and partner with others today.

2016 – Bringing Focus to Our Work

By 2016, STAGES had grown far beyond the performing arts academy we first imagined. Nearly a decade of teaching, producing, and partnering with schools had revealed something bigger: we weren’t simply creating theater experiences – we were helping young people discover who they were.

Becoming an independent nonprofit gave us the opportunity to build an organization around that realization. We adopted the mission that continues to guide us today, embraced a new name –STAGES Youth Theater – and began putting structures in place that would allow our vision to grow for decades to come.

2017-2019 – Building While Growing

The years between 2017 and 2019 were defined by momentum. Enrollment continued to climb, new partnerships emerged, and opportunities seemed to arrive faster than we could have imagined. Nearly every part of STAGES was under construction at once – not just our programs, but our educational philosophy, school partnerships, leadership, fundraising, and the organizational systems needed to support it all.

We learned that sometimes growth happens because you have a plan; and sometimes the plan emerges because you’re growing. For STAGES, these years were very much the latter. Every new opportunity asked us to become a different kind of organization. The pace was exhilarating, occasionally messy, and almost always demanding—but it taught us how to think bigger, collaborate more deeply, and build with greater intention. Looking back, many of the ideas, relationships, and values that define STAGES today took root during this busy, ambitious, and deeply formative chapter.

2020-2021 – Leading With Creativity

When the world changed in 2020, the STAGES priorities didn’t. Young people still needed places to belong, families still needed connection and stability, and our teaching artists still needed meaningful ways to create. While so much around us felt uncertain, we remained focused on the people at the heart of our work. Rather than waiting for someone else to tell us what youth theater should look like, we began designing new ways to keep our community learning, creating, and growing together.

What followed became one of the most innovative periods in our history. Creativity stopped being something we simply taught – it became the operating system for the entire organization, shaping everything from logistics and technology to partnerships, programming development, and leadership. We immediately immersed ourselves in professional learning, sought ideas from unexpected places, experimented fearlessly, and often found ourselves contributing those discoveries back to the national TYA community. Many of the ideas born during this extraordinary period outlived the pandemic itself, becoming the foundation for many of the programs, partnerships, and values that continue to shape STAGES today.

2022-2026 – Theater, Reimagined

Emerging from the pandemic years, STAGES found itself asking different questions. Rather than wondering what programs to offer next, we began asking what children need most at each stage of development – and how theater might help meet those needs. That shift transformed the way we designed our work. Instead of building programs around theatrical traditions, we began designing experiences around developmental readiness, using the tools of theater to spark imagination, build relationships, and create opportunities for self-discovery.

We also discovered that building something truly new required a broader creative community. Today, STAGES is shaped by an extraordinary team of Teaching Artists with backgrounds spanning theater, improvisation, writing, game design, puppetry, choreography, storytelling, and other creative practices. Together, they share a commitment to our mission and a belief that the richest learning experiences are created when many creative perspectives are welcomed into the room. Our Teaching Artists continue to challenge our assumptions, refine our ideas, and expand our understanding of what theater education can be.

Looking Ahead

Looking back over twenty years, it’s tempting to see a clear path from where we started to where we are today. The truth is, it rarely felt that way. Every chapter in this story began with a question, an opportunity, or a challenge we couldn’t have predicted. We tried things. We made mistakes. We listened. We changed our minds. More often than not, the most important lessons came from the young people we set out to teach.

Today, we know something we didn’t know when we began: theater isn’t simply what we do – it’s how we help young people discover who they are. That conviction now shapes every decision we make and every chapter still to come. That confidence doesn’t mean our work is finished – it gives us the courage to keep building.

As the first generation of STAGES students begins raising families, leading communities, creating art, and shaping the world in countless ways, we’re reminded that every young person who walks through our doors is part of a story much larger than our own. The next chapter always belongs to the young people who shape it. We’re grateful to play a small part in helping them discover what’s possible.

Click here for a list of past STAGES productions

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