Year in review: The biggest San Diego theater stories of 2025

The scorecard for San Diego’s theater scene in 2025 was marked by some losses but mostly wins.

On the downside, many companies reduced the size of their seasons to cope with rising production expenses and a decline in federal grants along with state arts budget cuts. But individual San Diego donors and organizations like the San Diego’s Conrad Prebys Foundation stepped up this year to help fill the gap.

On the upside, local theaters and San Diego Opera managed to collectively produce nearly 150 productions countywide this year, including numerous world premiere plays and musicals. A glorious new theater complex opened in the Point Loma area and a beloved local theater leader took his final bow before heading to New York.

Here’s a look at the year in San Diego theater.

The Joan opens its doors

On Sept. 5, the $43.5 million Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center opened at Arts District Liberty Station. Nicknamed “The Joan” — in honor of the late San Diego philanthropist, who with her husband, Irwin, donated $10 million toward the project — the 42,166-square-foot, two-theater complex was built inside a historic 1942-era U.S. Navy recreation building. Eight years in the planning stages, The Joan is owned by Arts District Liberty Station and managed by anchor tenant Cygnet Theatre, which will provide performance space to other performing arts groups whenever it’s not in production. Meanwhile, Cygnet’s former home, the city-owned Old Town Theatre, is now being booked through 2026 by local youth and adult companies who do not have a space to call their own. Speaking of theaters, Oceanside Theatre Company broke ground Tuesday on a major renovation of its 90-year-old city-owned home, the Sunshine Brooks Theater.

Christopher Ashley says farewell

After 18 years at the helm of La Jolla Playhouse, artistic director Christopher Ashley steps down at the end of this month to move on to his new position as artistic director of the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City, one of the largest and most prestigious nonprofit theaters in America. During his tenure, the affable and soft-spoken Ashley sent 20 shows to Broadway, including the Tony-winning musicals “Memphis” and “The Outsiders,” and the globally acclaimed “Come From Away,” which earned Ashley a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical. Ashley also created numerous institutional programs at the Playhouse, including the WOW Festival, DNA New Work Series, Resident Theater Program and more. Replacing Ashley will be two-time Tony Award-nominated stage director Jessica Stone, who will be the Playhouse’s first woman artistic director. She’ll arrive early next year.

Another big name in San Diego regional theater, Tim Shields, announced this year that he’ll be retiring from his position as managing director of The Old Globe in 2026. A search is underway for his replacement. Shields guided the Globe through the challenging times of the COVID-19 lockdown and has been praised by artistic director Barry Edelstein for his leadership. “Tim is the dean of theater managers in the United States, Edelstein said in October. “He’s clearly exemplary and has transformed the place in ways the audience will never see in the internal systems he created, the hires he’s made and the changes in how we do business. The community of San Diego owes Tim Shields a great debt of gratitude and he’ll be tough to replace.”

Curtain rises for OnWord Theatre

Last spring, a new theater company launched in San Diego. OnWord Theatre was founded by three African American female artists: actor/director Marti Gobel, the company’s producing artistic director; Jamaelya Hines, its managing director and resident artist; and Danielle Bunch, OnWord’s marketing director and production manager. Their first season included three well-staged, thought-provoking plays in three different venues. OnWord’s just-announced second season is even more ambitious, with four challenging issue-oriented plays and a staged reading.

CCAE Theatricals transforms

From 2021 to 2023, the fledgling CCAE Theatricals produced some of San Diego County’s most-awarded adult-cast musicals, including two world premieres. But when Escondido’s city-owned arts center reduced its budget to eliminate CCAE Theatricals as its in-house live theater producer, the theater company trimmed its budget to program only youth plays and drama camps, play-reading events and live concerts. On Dec. 2, the company re-emerged as the newly rebranded Mosaic Theatricals. Mosaic will focus on grant-funded theater for young audiences productions, a theater workforce development internship program with Cal State San Marcos and the continuation of its spring and summer youth theater workshops and live concerts. It still hopes to produce one big musical each year, as the budget allows.

Five new musicals

Five new musicals made their world premieres in 2025 at La Jolla Playhouse and The Old Globe, making San Diego one of the nation’s largest producers of new American musicals. At the Playhouse, three new works — all directed by Christopher Ashley — were “3 Summers of Lincoln,” “The Heart” and “Working Girl.” At the Old Globe, “Regency Girls” and “Huzzah!” made their debuts.

Diverse new plays

There were also numerous world premiere plays in San Diego in 2025, many by Latinx, Asian, LBGTQ and women playwrights. Among these new works were Eliana Theologides Rodriguez’s “Indian Princesses,” Steven Dietz’s “Peril in the Alps,” Carla Navarro’s “Fragment/o/s of Air/e,” Deepak Kumar’s “House of India,” Anna Ziegler’s “The Janeiad,” Mabelle Reynoso’s “La Llorona on the Blue Line” and “Young Audiences,” Noah Diaz’s “All the Men Who’ve Frightened Me,”  Francis Gercke’s “The Dark Heart of Dooley Stevens,” Paul Slade Smith’s “Beside Myself,” Keiko Green’s “Empty Ride” and Anna Sandor’s “Knock Loudly.”

Goodbyes

San Diego’s theater community lost two major donors as well as two creative artists who contributed to the local arts scene in years past. Philanthropists Donald L. Cohn, who twice served as president of the board for The Old Globe, passed May 2. Philanthropist Doug Diamond, who with his wife, Alice, championed San Diego’s small theaters, passed in July. Former San Diegan David Lee Cuthbert, a prolific lighting, scenic and projection designer, passed Feb. 11. And famed South African playwright Athol Fugard, who spent several years in San Diego as a theater faculty member at UC San Diego and writing plays for La Jolla Playhouse, died March 8.