The California State Summer School for the Arts Theatre Program offers intensive professionally-oriented acting training for students who are serious about exploring the craft of acting and the possibilities of the art of theatre in the modern world. An open mind, an adventuresome spirit, the desire and ability to work hard and enjoy it, the capacity to be a part of an ensemble, and a passion and willingness to explore a variety of approaches to acting are more important prerequisites for this program than extensive prior theatre experience.

The focus of the program is two-fold. First, it is about training, with an emphasis on the development of the actor's physical instrument. There is rigorous physical work in every class. Students are placed into one of six groups which meet daily for a 2-hour core acting class. Each of these acting groups moves between classes in Tai Chi Chuan, movement, physical comedy, contact improvisation, mask, stage combat, dance, voice, and Shakespeare on Mondays through Saturdays throughout the four-week session. There is no separate "musical theater program." All students take all of the above-mentioned classes. There is an additional, intensive musical theater elective for students who wish to work in this area and are accepted, based on audition.

Second, it is about the life of an actor. InnerSpark annually schedules performances, lectures and seminars with visiting actors, casting agents and companies to expand each student's vision of the art form, and to provide a practical, realistic picture of the various choices within the profession. The list of guest performers in the Theatre Program has recently included The Faustwork Mask Theatre, Daniel Stein, Charles Fleischer, Mara Neimanis, The Green Fools Physical Theatre Society, The Ghost Road Company, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Brenda Wong Aoki, The Dell'Arte Company, the Oxblood Theatre Company, Lume, a Brazilian physical theatre troupe in their first US performance and residency, and the Shamans, an award-winning company from Hungary. Special seminars were conducted by casting agent Deborah Barylski, actors James Belushi, Helen Hunt, Peter Kors, Leonard Nimoy, Calvin Remsberg, Nancy Travis, stunt coordinator Dean Ferrandini and others. Students have direct contact with all visiting artists and lecturers.

There is no performance component to the Theatre Program, and no big show at the end. Process takes priority over product in this program. There is a weekly departmental assembly, every Monday night of the summer session, entitled Bits & Pieces, in which work from classes, exercises and assignments is shared among theatre students and faculty, and with other members of the InnerSpark community. The pieces are critiqued, refined with faculty input, and often repeated. It is a way for students to work in a larger context, and learn from others. There is also a weekly departmental Connections seminar, which provides a framework for discussion of the performances seen and the classes taken during the week.

In addition to required classes, seminars and performances, theatre students have opportunities to collaborate with participants from other departments in the development of scripts, monologues, films and performance art projects.

The California State Summer School for the Arts Theater Department is chaired by Michael Fields. Mr. Fields, who has received San Francisco and San Diego Critics Circle Awards as a performer and a director, is an internationally recognized Master Teacher of Physical Theater Styles. He is a founding member and the Producing Artistic Producing Director of the Dell’Arte Company, and the Producing Director of the Dell’Arte Company’s Mad River Festival. He has directed productions at theaters throughout the United States and internationally, including a new Grand Guignol work for the Swedish National Theater. In 2006 he adapted and directed a production, currently on tour in Denmark, of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. Michael has been a resident director at Het Vervolg Theatre in Maastricht, Holland, directing six productions over five years. He was a member of the Board of Directors of Theater Communications Group (TCG) from 1998 - 2004 where he served as President of the International Theater Institute/USA. His articles have been published in American and international periodicals including Critical Perspectives, Writings on Art, and Civic Dialogue.

A partial list of the California State Summer School for the Arts Theater faculty includes voice and acting instructor EvaMarii Johnson, who has served on the faculties of Cornell University and Northwestern University and has extensive Broadway and regional theater acting experience; Ed Douglas, a noted Hollywood fight choreographer and stunt man, who teaches acting and stage combat at InnerSpark; Sherry Tschernisch, Tai Chi Chuan and acting instructor, who was a member of the famed San Francisco Actors Workshop under the direction of Herbert Blau, and currently teaches at CalArts; B.J. Dodge, acting and movement instructor who directs the Community Arts Partnership Theater Program at Plaza de la Raza in Los Angeles, and has taught at CSU Long Beach and CalArts; Tracey Moore, acting and musical theater instructor, who has appeared in the Broadway touring company of Ragtime, and the Richard Harris national tour of Camelot, and has performed major roles in productions at important regional theaters throughout the United States. She is the coauthor of Acting the Song: Performance Skills for the Musical Theatre and currently teaches acting and musical theater at Western Kentucky University; Cal Pritner, teaches Shakespearean Acting at InnerSpark. The founding artistic director of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, and the retired chair of the Illinois State University Theater department that produced the founders of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Cal is the coauthor of How to Speak Shakespeare and Introduction to Play Analysis, and the author of Mark Twain and Me Unlearning Racism.