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Empowering Theatre Arts Professionals through Performance, Education, Networking, Service, and Outreach in Southern California | |
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Academy of New Musical Theatre
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 24th Street Theatre Debbie Devine, Artistic Director of 24th Street Theatre, has been an award-winning theatre director and a respected leader in the field of arts education for over three decades. She has been the Chair of the Drama Dept. of The Colburn School of Performing arts for over 20 years. She is also a theatrical director with the LA Philharmonic and is thrilled to be directing in the gorgeous space that is Disney Hall. Debbie is the co-founder and Artistic Director of L.A.’s 24th Street Theatre, which has created award-winning professional theatre and model arts education programs for thousands of students and teachers since 1997. Debbie’s work as an actor has earned her three Drama-Logue Critics Awards, a Robby Award, an L.A. Weekly Award, LA Parent Magazine’s Best Westside Children’s Theatre Award, and the Women In Theatre Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Los Angeles Theatre. Debbie recently earned LA County Arts Commission’s Professional Designation in Arts Education, and is the recipient of the USC Rossier School of Education’s Innovation and Leadership Award, and won LA’s County Music Center’s 2001 Bravo Special Mention for her work in Arts Education. Jay McAdams is Executive Director of LA’s 24th Street Theatre. He is also a producer, having produced dozens of theatrical productions over the last 20 years and won LA Weekly’s 2011 Production of the Year Award. Jay is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and is a 2011 Leadership LA Fellow. Among his other leadership training is LA County Arts Commission’s Arts Leadership Initiative, the Annenberg Leadership Institute, and the prestigious Stanford University Executive Program for Non-Profit Leaders, where Jay won a Center for Social Innovation Fellowship. Jay has also been selected by the US State Department to serve as a Cultural Envoy to El Salvador, where he has performed and taught on three Central American tours. Jay won the Innovation and Leadership Award from USC’s Rossier School of Education for his work in Arts Education. 24th Street Theatre is an arts organization like no other. Built in 1928 as a Carriage House, these walls were once home to the working horses of the grand Victorian homes in this neighborhood, many of which still stand today. Thus, this historic old building has always served a useful purpose; in its past and now in its present. Since 24th Street Theatre’s beginning in 1997, the organization has taken on a life of its own. We started out just intending to do plays. But we quickly found that this was a neighborhood that deserved…demanded so much more than we had planned to give. It was a neighborhood like we thought had ceased to exist. A community where people still knew each other. A true neighborhood with as much character as our charming old carriage house. So we began doing Outreach projects with local kids, then Art Exhibits, then Music, and then Arts Education projects with the local schools. We began to expand our work beyond the neighborhood to citywide audiences, and other school districts. Our work then reached beyond our borders as we began to establish an International reputation, working with theatres in other countries and representing the United States as Cultural Envoys in other parts of the world. With the given that all of our programming must be of the highest caliber, we began to use our art as a tool with which to bring people back to this old building and to the neighborhood. A tool with which to make people remember…or sometimes forget. Today we are proud to be a leader in Arts Education, Community Outreach, and quality Professional Theatre for young and old alike. Today, we do more than just plays! 24th Street is truly a model 21st Century arts organization which is using first-class art to make a difference in our own neighborhood, in our city, and around the world. A building from the past, with a mission for the future.
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