HISTORY
Co-founders Michael and Elizabeth Newcomer met on the steps of a theatre.
It was, perhaps, inevitable that they would eventually build one. Both held Equity cards. Elizabeth had trained at some of the finest theatre programs in the country. Michael had built his career show by show, credit by credit, at top regional theatres across the United States. Between them, more than 40 professional credits.
And both, upon returning to New Orleans, found the same thing: a city with extraordinary artistic talent and no professional infrastructure to hold it.
They were told more than once that they were right for the job but couldn't be hired, the wages simply weren't there. So in 2019, they began building what didn't exist.
2020
Crescent City Stage is officially founded in March. Then COVID hits.
Rather than going dark, CCS goes virtual — mounting staged readings on Zoom with colleagues from New York, Los Angeles, and beyond. Productions of Uncle Vanya, Macbeth, King Lear, The Importance of Being Earnest, and more. At a moment when the world felt more disconnected than ever, theatre did what theatre does best: it brought people together. CCS built its audience before it ever had a stage.
2021
CCS receives its nonprofit status. Classes launch virtually, planting the seed of what will become a full education program.
2022
The lights come up on CCS's first live production: Pantomime. The audiences who followed the company through the virtual years are there to welcome it.
Gambit names CCS "Best (Sorta) New Theater Company" in its annual Staff Picks.
2023
Three productions: Cry It Out, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and A Christmas Carol. CCS proves it can sustain a full season.
2024
The Cake, A Doll's House, A Christmas Carol. Gambit readers rank CCS second among the top three best local theatre companies in New Orleans.
2025
CCS opens its first permanent studio space on Magazine Street in Uptown New Orleans — a home of its own, at last.
Productions of Tiny Beautiful Things and Miss Holmes & Miss Watson: Apartment 2B. Classes now run year-round, serving students of all ages, with professional scene study alongside youth and family programming.
2026
Love Letters, Bard at the Batture, Primary Trust — a Pulitzer Prize-winning play in its regional premiere at the Contemporary Arts Center, drawing more than 1,000 patrons. For the first time, CCS took its work outdoors, performing Shakespeare on the batture along the Mississippi River.
TODAY
Crescent City Stage is the only professional union-affiliated theatre company in New Orleans producing a full season of contemporary work. Every artist is paid. Every production is made with the conviction that brought CCS into being: the best storytellers, telling the best stories, is enough to move people.
