Our Story
Liz and Michael met on the steps of a theatre.
What happened next was probably inevitable.
Liz came with institutional pedigree — a BFA from NYU Tisch, an MFA from UC San Diego, training at two of the top theatre programs in the country. Michael came with something different: a career built show by show, credit by credit, at some of the best regional theatres in the United States. Between them, they had seen what great theatre looks like from every angle — the classroom, the rehearsal room, the stage.
They came to New Orleans (Liz coming home, Michael choosing it) with decades of professional experience and a conviction that this city deserved the kind of theatre they knew how to make. What they found was a ceiling.
The talent was here. The audiences were hungry.
But the theatres calling themselves professional weren't paying professional wages. Liz and Michael were told, more than once, that they were the right people for the job — and that they couldn't be hired anyway, because no one would pay Equity wages. So they stopped waiting for someone else to build it.
2020
Crescent City Stage is officially founded. Then COVID hits. Instead of going dark, they go virtual — readings with colleagues from New York, Los Angeles, and across the country. An audience starts to form before there's ever a stage.
CCS has its first live production.
2022
CCS finds its permanent home — a studio space on Magazine Street in Uptown New Orleans.
Fourteen productions. More than 8,000 audience members. More Equity contracts than any other theatre company in the city.
CCS was co-founded by three theatre artists. Jana Mestecky is recognized as Co-Founder Emeritus.
2025
NOW
