By Kristen Nevarez Schweizer
February 1, 2026
In a diverse city as theatrically busy as San Diego, the most meaningful artistic choice a company can make is which plays to include in its season lineup. Programming is a declaration of values, taste, and vision.
San Diego’s theater ecosystem works precisely because the companies that work here feel like they have clarity of purpose.
La Jolla Playhouse remains a nationally acclaimed engine for new work, and The Old Globe is famous for its consistent balance of legacy, spectacle, and premieres.
Cygnet Theatre has built a reputation for musically rich revivals that reward close listening. North Coast Repertory Theatre offers polished, actor-forward storytelling in an intimate setting.
MOXIE Theatre remains fiercely committed to women’s stories, and popular Diversionary Theatre leads with beautiful LGBTQ+ narratives. New Village Arts champions contemporary work with heart, while San Diego Musical Theatre keeps the canon alive and trains local talent.
Add to that long-running audience devotion of Lamb’s Players Theatre and Moonlight Stage Productions, the community-rooted tradition of Patio Playhouse and Ocean Beach Playhouse, the cultural urgency of Teatro Máscara Mágica, and the form-pushing experimentation of Blindspot Collective. We have the newly energized heartbeat of Oceanside Theatre Co on one side of the county, and the scrappy rapport of OnStage Playhouse on the other. Put it all together, and you begin to see why our theatres don’t feel competitive. They practically work in concert to create an incredible theatre scene.
When certain important scripts hit the market, I lament the loss of The San Diego REPertory Theatre. The REP stood for nearly half a century as the theater we could count on to do high-caliber productions of the gutsiest stories. Its closure in 2022 felt like losing a load-bearing pillar of our city’s dramatic ballroom.
This spring, it is an answer to a prayer that The Roustabouts Theatre Co is staging An Act of God.
An Act of God carries a formidable pedigree and fearless point of view. Written by David Javerbaum, a 13-time Emmy winner and former head writer of The Daily Show, the jokes and gasps are plentiful. This comedy is irreverent without being lazy. It is deeply theatrical in its reliance on language, timing, and performance.
When the play premiered on Broadway in 2015, starring Jim Parsons as God, it proved that audiences are hungry for work that treats belief, doubt, and power not as punchlines, but as material worthy of satire—because they matter. This script trusts its audience’s intelligence and appetite for challenge.
The Broadway tour visited Los Angeles in 2016, and in 2019, An Act of God was presented by Carlsbad Playreaders as a staged reading, but the show is finally getting its true Southern California debut this March with Roustabouts.
Now nearly a decade old, Roustabouts has a clear identity: a playwright’s theater drawn to visionary, text-driven work that invites real discussion and snorting laughs. They’ve chosen Guntopia, Iron, Hand to God and True West to name a few greats. Under the direction of artistic director Phil Johnson, An Act of God reminds us that the most important artistic decisions happen long before opening night.
