{"id":624157,"date":"2026-03-01T08:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T08:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/624157\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T08:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T08:19:15","slug":"meet-christian-st-croix-the-first-artist-ambassador-for-sd-theatre-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/624157\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Christian St. Croix \u2013 the first artist ambassador for SD Theatre Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>Playwright Christian St. Croix. (Photo by Jay Henslee)<\/p>\n

For the first time, San Diego Theatre Month<\/a> has a human face for the major task of promoting local performing arts throughout March. <\/p>\n

Award-winning playwright Christian St. Croix<\/a>, named the inaugural artist ambassador, is personally taking on the mantle of the San Diego Performing Arts League (SDPAL), a nonprofit with the goal of providing affordable, accessible theater to locals. <\/p>\n

Venues taking part in Theatre Month charge $15, $30 or $45 during March for entry to a range of traditional plays and musicals. In addition, there\u2019s tickets to improv shows, dance concerts and musical acts too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping to encourage San Diego audiences to, if they already love theater and (have) found themselves falling out of love with theater, to find it again. And then also encourage people who do not know theater that well, to take a chance on a new show \u2026 and see what\u2019s out there and the different types of theater that San Diego can provide,\u201d St. Croix said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Find all the San Diego Theatre Month listings and get tickets at sandiegotheatremonth.com\/events-list<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Raised in Sacramento, St. Croix had little to no exposure to theater growing up in a neighborhood of \u201cworker bees.\u201d The arts, to him and his community, were at most a weekend hobby.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A commission from Scripps Ranch Theatre changed that for him. The resulting play, Monsters of the American Cinemas, changed his life trajectory. The slice-of-life play set in Santee has garnered attention for its gritty depiction of a widowed gay Black man raising his late husband\u2019s white son. They bond over classic American monster movies until the son\u2019s involvement in a gay-bashing incident threatens to tear them apart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An expanded version was performed at Diversionary Theatre, and other theaters across the county picked it up. In the next two months, it will show at Alley Rep Theatre in Boise, Idaho and Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill, N.Y.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other San Diego locales have inspired St. Croix, including for the ghost story Normal Heights, which played at the Fringe Fest and honors his favorite neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While New York City and Los Angeles might have more established paths in theater, he likes that San Diego strives for uniqueness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re open to experimentation,\u201d St. Croix said. \u201cThey\u2019re always looking for the different slant or a different way to tell the story. And I always found that interesting about San Diego.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the announcement of his ambassadorial role, St. Croix said that every break in his playwriting career came from someone making space for him. Now, he wants to help make space for others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to contribute to the enrichment of the arts in San Diego,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He shared that many Theatre Month attendees are college students, searching for what interests them. Most have never heard of black box, experimental or interactive theater.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren aren\u2019t being given the access to theater arts as often as they used to, as often as they should be,\u201d St. Croix said. \u201cMostly, what they know about theater and theater arts is from Broadway. So they think everything\u2019s Wicked, everything\u2019s Rent, everything\u2019s Sweeney Todd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like movie theaters, live theater has to compete with streaming services. And many production companies have yet to fully recover from COVID-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEven after all of these years, there are still some theaters struggling to stay afloat and struggling to keep their candles lit,\u201d St. Croix said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Each year, around 5,000 tickets are sold during Theatre Month, boosting attendance beyond the usual audience figures in February and April. SDPAL board president Jay Henslee shared that last year, one theater was planning to reduce its five-show season to four. But the influx of revenue and attendees during Theatre Month let it maintain its planned season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some aspects of Theatre Month are still trying to bounce back as well. Offerings have been slimmer, which Henslee attributed to fewer shows being performed in general.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The number of participating organizations has started to rebound. \u201cWe conduct outreach to every organization producing a show in March, and have been successful in growing the number of participating organizations,\u201d Henslee said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most shows will be performed in March, but a few places are offering discounted pre-sale tickets. The Old Globe has discounted tickets to Shakespeare\u2019s Measure for Measure in June and audiences can see The Spongebob Musical at The Joan that month as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For his part, St. Croix recommends Matt & Ben, a play at New Village Arts written by Mindy Kaling, the 30th anniversary tour of Riverdance\u00a0and The Notebook musical brought here by Broadway San Diego. He also likes the premiere play Straddle at Diversionary Theatre and Measure for Measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Playwright Christian St. Croix. (Photo by Jay Henslee) For the first time, San Diego Theatre Month has a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":624158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,2677,1582,276,266773,44449,3549,7264,6412,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-624157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-artists","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-diversionary","tag-musical","tag-san-diego","tag-sandiego","tag-tickets","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116152943626826773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}