Shakespeare Santa Cruz was founded in 1981 by Audrey Stanley and performed annually on the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Plays by Shakespeare were performed both indoors on the UCSC Theater Arts Mainstage and outdoors in the Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen. Usually, the company's season ran from July to early September and presented three or four plays that ran concurrently in repertory. Over time, the company ran up deficits, which were paid by the University of California. In 2008, with California's budget crisis having resulted in reduced funding, the university could no longer afford to cover these debts. An agreement was reached that if the theater could raise $300,000, it could continue operation. Within 10 days of the agreement's announcement, over $400,000 was raised. However, claiming continuing financial problems, in 2013 the UCSC Arts Division dean announced that Shakespeare Santa Cruz would end after that year's winter holiday production. Following this announcement, members of the theater company began a campaign to raise money to become an independent company. In December 2013, a new entity known as Shakespeare Play On was formed for this purpose, co-headed by Shakespeare Santa Cruz artistic director Marco Baricelli and actor/director Mike Ryan. An online platform for accepting donations was established with the Network for Good. By February 2014, they raised over $1 million through crowdfunding to continue on without the financial support of the university. In March 2014, the new company changed its name to Santa Cruz Shakespeare. The New York Times referred to the company's rebirth as an "underdog success story." For its inaugural season under its new arrangement, Santa Cruz Shakespeare presented As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Beard of Avon in July and August 2014. All three shows were performed in the Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen on UCSC's campus. For the 2015 season Mike Ryan took over sole Artistic Director duties and the company announced productions of Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, and David Ives's adaptation of Pierre Corneille's The Liar. For the 2016 season the company moved to a new purpose-built home in the Audrey Stanley Grove at Upper DeLaveaga Park in Santa Cruz.
*The originally planned Season was Postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic Instead SCS produced 4 plays as online staged readings with each play broken into multiple performances over a series of weeks.
