Best Amateur Theater Oakland Near Me

4worldlovers: On May 5, 2019, Company Members from the Oakland Theater Project took the stage at TedX Palo Alto for a performance and talk exploring how theater can bridge divides in a broken America.


Amid the dense arts scene of California’s Bay Area, Ubuntu Theater Project has proudly distinguished itself with a mission statement of being “radically inclusive.”

As I learned more about Ubuntu from talking with its leadership, I began to see this three-year-old company as an heir to the movement in American theater that began in 1931.

“One of the most exciting young companies to emerge in the Bay Area in the past decade”

“The Ubuntu Theater Project’s absolute belief in community leads them into strange and revelatory productions… Oakland’s most dynamic theater company“

“One of the leading art theatres in the Bay area, and, quite possibly, in the entire United States of America”

4worldlovers: An introduction to Meisner Technique and Improv Theater. Connect and transform.

A fun, affordable, mixed level drop-in style workshop and class offered on Sundays.

Spend a weekend with the original Improv Guru. Learn from the former director of Second City, LA directly.

Improv Jam - June 10th. $10 to play or be in the audience. Doors open at 8pm.

Pan Theater is the East Bay’s oldest improv theater. Pan has been bringing improv goodness to Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area since 2002.

Tens of thousands of people have come to Pan shows and taken classes at Pan over the years.

Pan is located at 120 Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, a 30 second walk from 12th Street BART. Pan is convenient to the entire San Francisco, Bay Area.

Pan Theater offers improv classes, workshops and improv shows in Oakland. Pan is the San Francisco Bay Area’s favorite improv hot spot offering you top notch improv comedy shows and affordable improv classes for every skill level.

Pan Theater alumni have gone on to graduate school in theater and conservatory programs, launched stand up and acting careers and brought more fun and excitement to their lives.

Pan alumni have also gone on to start troupes, theaters and related journeys. Others have used improv to enhance their careers and personal lives.

For those new to improv checkout the Rules of Improv Parts I.

Choosing an improv class can be difficult when you are first starting out.

Improv from the Heart is our Meisner based signature improv class. The class is one of our more popular classes. The class explores bringing more emotion to improv. It is not a “comedy” improv class. The class is for those that want to sharpen their acting skills and be able to explore a deeper and more emotional approach to improv.

Pan focuses on learning by doing and we offer troupe opportunities based on experience level. Group auditions are quarterly.

4worldlovers:
Ragged Wing Ensemble was an award-winning ensemble theater company that created original, interdisciplinary performances, plays and art events for nearly two decades in the SF Bay Area. A pillar of the Bay Area experimental theatre scene, Ragged Wing touched the lives of hundreds of participating artists and thousands of audience members.


Ragged Wing Ensemble’s mission was to rouse the human spirit through artistic action. We practiced the art of fierce play, hatching the myths of our time. Our process was fluid, changing depending on the needs of the project. Rigor, humor and artistic exuberance characterized our work together as we committed to self-care, the care of our group and the care of our communities. We operated on the belief that the practice of true ensemble (collaborative art-making) is a radical act, having positive social repercussions beyond the rehearsal room.


Ragged Wing was founded in 2004 by Amy Sass, Keith Davis & Anna Shneiderman. There were many collaborators and leaders who helped craft the organization during its founding years. After a successful first show, the group began producing one or two shows per year, focusing on stories that emerged from folktales, myths and everyday occurrences to become theater, visual art, music, dance and film. Between 2009 and 2013, Ragged Wing created immersive, outdoor events in local parks, developed its unique process of creating original, full length plays led by Artistic Director Amy Sass, established its core company of artists, and launched an education program. In 2014, Ragged Wing opened The Flight Deck, a shared black box theater in downtown Oakland, and continued to produce original shows and educational programs there until 2020.

Throughout its history, Ragged Wing pushed the boundaries of what art and theater could be. We melded artistic disciplines, invited audiences to join us in the magic of creation, and experimented with collaborative processes both in the rehearsal room and in the board room. As the organization grew, we strove to pay artists a fair wage, distribute our leadership structure, and operationalize our values around health, equity and access. We put our humanity at the center.


Ragged Wing created original, full length plays, original one-act festivals, immersive performance events, and multi-media gallery shows that explored ancient questions in a contemporary world. Large-scale visual design, original music, and adventurous physicality were the markers of a Ragged Wing show. Both site-specific and site-flexible, our work was found in theaters, in galleries, under bridges, online, and in the woods.

Though we began initially as a physical theater company, our ensemble bloomed and grew and in 2014 we created the Visual Arts Core, a specific wing of our Core Company devoted to exploring themes through visual art, installation and gallery shows. The artists also created immersive experiences in partnership with our performance events. A powerful dialogue emerged as visual and performing artists riffed off themes, expanding each other’s skill and evolving each other’s work over time.

After years of developing our unique kinetic style of creative practice and collaborative agility, we birthed a dynamic multidisciplinary adult education program called FIERCE PLAY. Deemed “A pedagogical miracle”, our Fierce Play programs offered artists an holistic experience honing and integrating creative skills, exploring such topics as Story, Body, Environment, & Entrepreneurship through a tactile, site-specific, multi-sensory methodology.

From 2014-2020, The Flight Deck was a home for multidisciplinary artists to present work, share resources and practice radical acts of imagination in the heart of downtown Oakland. Created and managed by Ragged Wing Ensemble, The Flight Deck presented over 200 events by hundreds of artists to thousands of audiences every year. As Oakland’s only shared Black Box theater, The Flight Deck served up a unique mix of arts and culture events, and the community around it was rich and vibrant.

A permanent Flight Deck Legacy wall has been installed at 1540 Broadway, now PianoFight Oakland, to commemorate Ragged Wing’s run (2014-2020) creating and running Oakland’s only shared black box theater. Artists Marlene Tobias & David Cramer worked with transparent photos and mirrors to create a joyful yet haunting tribute to The Flight Deck. Check it out next time you’re there for a show!

“Ragged Wing specializes in original, ensemble-created work with wildly inventive but precise physicality. It takes on unwieldy, abstract ideas and makes them dramatic through created or reinvented myth.”

"Ragged Wing is one of those local independent companies always worth seeing."


KQED: “Flight Deck, Oakland’s Only Black Box Theater, to Close in March” 11/19/2019

The Mercury News: “Time literally melts away in Ragged Wing’s stage fantasy in Oakland” 4/9/2019