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One Year at LACAE Theater: A Creative Home Built Together

Sep 4
4 min read

By Erin Coleman


This September marks one year since Future Artists of Los Angeles officially opened the doors to LACAE Theater and School in North Hollywood.


The Los Angeles Community of Acting and Entertainment began with a hope: that we could build a place where artists could learn, create, gather, and belong. One year later, I want to take a moment to look at what that hope has become, and thank the people who made it possible.


Fair warning: this is a little long and a little sappy. Stay with me until the end, okay? We’ve earned this.


The Heart Behind Our First Year


Nothing about this year has been easy. We are a young performing arts nonprofit finding our footing at a time when both nonprofits and the arts are struggling to stay afloat. We have faced challenges, sleepless nights, our own fears about keeping the lights on, and all the normal, occasionally terror-inducing territory that comes with beginning something important.


But just because it has been hard does not mean it has not also been joyous, life-affirming, and worth every single second.


Our days are filled with art, laughter, creativity, courage, hope, heart, and family. We set out to create an artistic home, and that is exactly what every person who donated, volunteered, attended an event, took a class, shared our work, or simply cheered us on from afar has helped us build.


Earlier this year, I shared our impact report. It held the facts and figures: the hours and space we donated, the training we helped make more affordable and accessible, the artists we supported, and the community collaborations we formed. All of that matters deeply.


Today, I want to share the feeling behind those numbers. The heart. The reason we did all of this in the first place.


A Look Back at Our First Year

I put together a video retrospective of our first year at LACAE Theater. Yes, I cried a little while making it. No, I didn’t make it five hours long, even though I easily could have with all the remarkable moments that make up what we created together.



And then picture, like, another four hours and fifty-eight minutes of that.


A Community Growing Across Generations


One of the greatest joys has been watching this community come together, evolve, and grow.


We began with a shared connection to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles and a determination not to let the community built there simply disappear. That history became our foundation, but it was never our boundary. Over the past year, people searching for an artistic home of their own have found their way to us.


Then something even more beautiful happened: the community began stretching across generations.


At our youth camps, we welcomed the young family members of people from that original core group. Some learned from faculty members who had once taught or worked alongside their parents and aunts. Others worked with a new generation of teachers who had themselves been taught and mentored by members of this community.


That kind of continuity is difficult to describe. It is history becoming possibility right in front of us.


To the People Who Helped Us Open These Doors


To our donors and volunteers in particular, thank you.


You believed in this before there was a full year of photographs, performances, classes, camps, screenings, rehearsals, and stories to point to. You gave us your resources, your time, your labor, and your trust. You helped us open these doors, and you helped us keep them open.


This beautiful dream of ours made it through its first year because of you.


Whether you have been here since the beginning or found us along the way, you are part of what this place has become. Every contribution, every hour volunteered, and every person who walked through the doors helped turn the idea of a creative home into something we get to experience every day.


Help Carry LACAE Theater Into Year Two


An incredible second year is already taking shape. There are more artists to welcome, more stories to tell, and more opportunities to learn and create together.

If you would like to help carry this work forward, you can make a one-time contribution of any size or join our Center Stage Club as a monthly donor.


Recurring gifts give us the stability to plan ahead, support more artists, keep our programs within reach, and continue being a home for the people who need one.



Thank you for helping us reach this milestone. Thank you for believing that Los Angeles still needs spaces where artists can learn, create, gather, and belong. Most of all, thank you for building this home with us.


Here’s to everything we have created, and everything still waiting for us in year two.


With all my gratitude,

Erin Coleman

Executive Director

Future Artists of Los Angeles at LACAE Theater

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