For westside families, the realization almost always comes at the Broad Stage.
The venue is located at 1310 11th St, Santa Monica, CA 90401, on the corner of Arizona Avenue - the flagship of the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center campus. Built in October 2008, the venue is now one of the top venues in Los Angeles for live performance at close quarters, with the design requirements that set it apart from other venues realized in a building that combines the intimacy of a small theater with the acoustics and staging of a large one, featuring one of the biggest proscenium stages in the city. From the boxes to the last row in the balcony, you can see the faces of the performers up close. That is what makes the Broad Stage the best option for a first theater experience for a child.
This guide will cover what the venue is, how the calendar and the events work, the parking details - and how a performance night fits into the westside family routine.
The Broad Stage and the Three Venues That It Houses
The Broad Stage is actually three performance venues in one building, and distinguishing between them helps in choosing the right ticket.
The Mainstage - officially the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage - is the venue's roughly 500 seat hall that gives it its reputation and recognition. Theater performances, dance, opera, jazz, world music, musicals, chamber orchestras, and family programming happen at the Mainstage. The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra performs here regularly, and the acoustics of the hall are highly praised in the reviews - clear sound regardless of the type of performance, whether a string quartet or soul music concert. There was one Yelper who has seen Baryshnikov perform here twice. These are the kind of performers that the hall hosts.
The Edye is the neighboring black box with just 100 seats - the venue that hosts the new and experimental performances by emerging and younger artists, chamber pieces and accessible programming. Tickets are more affordable here, the risks of the performances are higher, and for teenagers and older kids with interest in art, the Edye might be the room to visit.
The Plaza completes the campus as an indoor/outdoor venue for live music and dancing and community events - the loosest in terms of format and most family-friendly of the three venues.
In addition to the performances, the venue features various Educational and Community Programs reaching over 15,000 children, parents, educators, and community members each year - student matinees, artist talks, and performances for young audiences. As the proud partner of the Santa Monica College, the venue has a mission of community service that few commercial theaters carry.
The Broad Stage Santa Monica and How Location Makes the Night Different
The location of the Broad Stage Santa Monica - 11th and Arizona, in the middle of the residential area of the city rather than its entertainment district - is the key to the experience that the visitors from other areas of Los Angeles notice immediately.
There is no chaotic entertainment district. No towering parking garages with forty minute exit queues. You arrive on a quiet street, walk into the modern venue and are in your seat in just a couple of minutes. And the families arriving with children feel that difference even more vividly: the logistics of the performance night in the venue are far less stressful than at any other comparable LA venue - which is important when the audience consists of eight-year-olds and the show finishes at 9 PM on a school weekend.
The neighborhood contributes to the experience as well. The restaurant row on Wilshire Blvd is two blocks south, and the neighborhood is mentioned by the reviewers among the highlights of the night. Downtown Santa Monica with the Promenade is just a five minute drive west. Pre-show dinner, the show, sleepy way back home - all that happens in about a mile.
For families visiting the Broad Stage in Santa Monica for the first time, the single tip regarding the location of the venue prevents confusion: the Broad Stage is located on the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center campus at the 11th Street site - and not the main campus of the college on Pico. Use the street address to find it via GPS.
The Broad Stage Santa Monica CA - Contacts and Box Office Information
Information about the operations of the Broad Stage Santa Monica CA, compiled in one place. Address: 1310 11th St, Santa Monica, CA 90401. Phone: (310) 434-3200. The box office operates limited hours during the week - roughly from noon to 6 PM Tuesday through Friday - with the venue being open for the performances. Bookings are done on the official site broadstage.org, and for the popular family shows and free community events, advance booking is necessary; there is a limit of two tickets per person on some free performances that sell out weeks in advance.
Ticket prices vary widely based on the performer and the venue - shows in the Edye and community programming at the affordable end of the scale and headliners at the Mainstage at the premium end - so the current calendar listing is the true price list for any given night.
Accessibility in the venue is very good - the venue is wheelchair accessible, there is parking for the visitors with special needs and the accessible restrooms, and the venue mission includes multi-tiered approach to the access issues. Families with special needs can call the venue in advance and discuss the seating options with the staff.
The Broad Stage Santa Monica CA venue is officially designated as family-friendly venue by the Santa Monica visitor information - which is a small detail that says a lot about the reality of the matter. This is a seriously professional arts venue that wants to have children in the building, which is not a thing that every serious arts venue can afford.
The Broad Stage Events and Understanding the Calendar the Local Way
The Broad Stage events are the events covering so many genres in a single season that few venues try to cover in five years - and this is the very feature that makes the Broad Stage calendar worth following as a practice rather than a once-in-a-life-time event.
The typical season features performances of classical and chamber music, contemporary dance, jazz, world music, theater, opera, films, and special family programming. Shakespeare's comedies have been performed at the venue to rave reviews. Sufi and ghazal concerts share the season with ballet and soul music concerts. Free concerts by the Young Musicians Foundation get reserved in advance weeks in advance. This diversity of the performances is the whole point - the venue's mission is the bold performance and personal connection, and the calendar shows this mission at work.
For the families, the pattern in the Broad Stage calendar: family programming and student matinee series tend to occur mostly at weekends and during school holiday periods, while the accessible Edye programming and the free community events reward those who check the listings in advance. Signing up for the venue's announcements becomes the practical tool - the best dates at the 500-seat venue just won't last.
And there is also the educational aspect of the programming - artist talks, collaborations with schools, community events in the Plaza - which means that the calendar has events that cost little or nothing and take children to the room with the performing artists. For a westside family trying to develop a culture habit on a budget, that is the real value of the venue.
The Broad Stage LA Reputation and Its Place in the Arts Map of the City
The Broad Stage LA reputation has gradually grown since 2008 into something quite unique: the city's premiere intimate hall. Los Angeles has bigger venues - the downtown concert halls and amphitheaters - but nothing else in this category, where every seat is within the eye contact of the stage. Some reviewers named the venue their favorite venue in Los Angeles, praising the perfect size and acoustics; one reviewer described world-class dance performances here as being incomparable to anything seen in a larger venue.
This is exactly why the Broad Stage LA venue is the perfect first theater for children: a child in the back row of a 3,000-seat hall sees tiny figures performing and follows along the performance by faith. At the Broad Stage, the child sees actual living people, sweating, moving, landing jumps just twenty rows away. The difference is huge.
For the families considering the drive to the Broad Stage in Santa Monica from other areas of Los Angeles: this venue is absolutely worth the effort, particularly for the family programming and dance shows. Combine the show with a visit to the beach or the Promenade - and the venue becomes the centerpiece of the whole Santa Monica day.
The Broad Stage Los Angeles Families and the Perfect Family Day Around a Show
The Broad Stage Los Angeles audience is mostly local, but the family formula works for everyone: plan the day so that the performance would be the peak, not the only item on the calendar.
The mechanics of children and evening performances are quite unforgiving - a child confined to the indoors all day arrives to the 7 PM performance charged with the energy. A charged child in a quiet hall is no one's good evening. Families that manage show nights well spend the early day physically: beach morning, time at the park, or - the typical westside formula - a playtime at an indoor playground where the excess energy is spent.
This is our part of the story. Fun Play World's Santa Monica location at 828 Pico Blvd is just under ten minutes from the theater, and our Los Angeles location at 10672 West Pico Blvd is convenient for the families traveling from the east. The walk-in Open Play time on weekdays starts at 10 AM, and on Sundays - at 9 AM, the first child costs $35 for two hours of playtime, the second sibling - $25, the third - $20, two adults are included per family, $200 monthly membership - for the regular guests. Two hours of climbing and running in the afternoon produce exactly the kind of child needed in the Broad Stage Los Angeles evening show: tired, focused and asleep at the first freeway exit back home.
And there is also the matinee formula, where the performance comes first, followed by the physical activity. Perfect for the under eight children. Matinee at the theater, lunch at Wilshire and the play floor to expend all the energy of the quiet hall on.
Birthdays, as an additional note - run the same complementary split. An evening performance makes a good celebration for a small group of older children, while a mixed age party belongs on the play floor, designed for this purpose. Our birthday packages are priced from $1,800 Basic to $2,300 Adventure, $2,700 Ultimate, and $5,700 VIP - that is with food and dedicated staff, private party room, all setup and breakdown included, 18% service fee on all events, 40% deposit to reserve the date, balance due five days before the event.
The Broad Stage Parking - The Truth
The Broad Stage parking details are better than those of other LA venues, but still worth learning before the first visit, because the reviews reveal a two-sided truth.
The good part: there is a free on-site parking lot, which for a performance venue in Santa Monica is almost miraculous. Twelve separate Yelp reviews mention the free parking, with the local tip of parking in the outer part of the lot for easier exit after the performance.
The honest part: the lot is limited, and on busy nights - it is full. In such cases, the alternative is the street parking on the surrounding residential streets - which is available but competitive, with the typical Santa Monica requirement to learn the signs - or pre-booking of parking spaces in the nearby lots through parking apps. Some visitor guides suggest riding-sharing as the alternative for sold-out performances. And for the families combining the dinner with the performance night, dropping the car at the Wilshire restaurants and walking two blocks becomes the solution to both problems at once.
The broad stage parking general advice, from those who visit the venue often: arrive 30 to 40 minutes before the curtain rises and the parking lot will be still available; arrive at five to eight minutes before the start of the sold-out headliner performance and you will be circling in the lot. With the children in the car, the early arrival guarantees a calm entry that the evening deserves.
