Zellerbach Playhouse

This is a lovely small theatre on the northwest side of Zellerbach Hall. We've been here a couple of times years ago, once for a student production and once for a Berkeley Rep production. A few days ago we read an article about a student production of Philip Kan Gotanda's play, "After the War Blues" and ordered tickets for today's matinee online. Prices were very reasonable, $10 apiece for seniors and a $1 service charge for the total bill.We found convenient parking on campus a short walk to the Playhouse and picked up our tickets at Will Call. The lobby is spacious and attractive, w/ bathrooms at either end by the theatre doors, men's on the west side and women's on the east. Posters of past seasons' productions line the walls. Seating is unreserved and we found good seats. The seats themselves are roomy and comfortable and sightlines are good. The audience ranged from seniors to students. The play was very good, although not all the actors fully inhabited their roles, but most did a fine job and the price was right. The set was intricate and looked very professional and the music was superb. I had forgotten what a very nice theatre this is.

I am in utter disbelief that people pay $40, $60, or even more for tickets to this glorified high school auditorium. One star for $10 student tickets, though be warned that if you purchase at the box office, they will encourage you to take a bad seat. The auditorium is in poor shape. Small, dated multicolored seats with dirty upholstering, very little leg room. No AC is especially fun when it's 80+ degrees outside and packed in the Playhouse, stage lights glaring. The bathrooms are beyond disgusting. Of 5-6 women's stalls, 2 had broken locks. Cleanliness was seriously worse than Dwinelle; empty soap dispensers and cracked, filthy mirrors.We were here for one night of the Ojai festival. The event was excellent, but I was shocked to see in the program that, with the exception of a few one-off years when there was a group of directors, there has been a grand total of ONE female music director since the first festival in 1947. Is this real life? Is this Berkeley?!But yes, it is. World-class programming in one of the worst auditoriums I have ever seen on a college campus; Berkeley, y'all.

Came here to watch A Midsummer Night's Dream for a paper I have to write for class. Although there are productions I could've watched closer to home, I never pass up an excuse to visit my dream school.I arrived 5 minutes early, which was amazing considering the traffic. The lobby is spacious with bathrooms conveniently located near the theater doors. The play was scheduled for 2pm and started a few minutes late.This Playhouse offers a nice, intimate setting and features a proscenium aka picture frame stage (putting my newly learned theater terminology to use). Both the stage and seating areas aren't too big, with a total seating capacity of 439. The orchestra section is very shallow with only rows. There are two gallery sections on the second floor if you prefer a bird's eye view. This being said, you are able to hear what's going on stage without the need of microphones (as long as the actor's are projecting themselves enough for the back to hear).A great venue to catch a production if you can make it out to Berkeley!

This place is the epitome of class and culture. The citizens and students of Berkeley and both lucky to have such a fine establishment in their presence. I've attended shows here for years and my time in the Bay Area is soon coming to an end so i'm posting this. Just last week I was here for Bill Clinton's VIP after-speech event. I've seen countless plays, Michael Lewis, Dacher Keltner, and other fantastic speakers.This place is great for graduations and meetings too!Pro Tip: Students get tickets 50% off and they offer tickets at $5+ a few minutes before the show opens if there are still any tickets left.

One of my favorite places to see Theatre, and the programing is the best in the West!

Nice setting, a lot smaller than the main Zellerbach but in a good way. The shows feel more intimate and you can see student productions here. They have a gallery in the lobby where you can see playbills from past performances and talk to people.

I saw the Berkeley Dance Project's Equal Footing directed by Lisa Wymore last weekend and I want to encourage anyone who can to see this show. It was really good--the idea was to combine live music and dance and they did a great job. The music was really interesting--Joan Jeanrenaud playing on stage with dancers, Sheldon Smith doing his cool audio visual magic, David Coll using beautiful shimmering sheets of vibrating metal, and in Lisa Wymore's dance piece the dancers sang and used their own bodies for percussion. The Cal students did well with some complex choreography by the four well-known choreographers of the Berkeley Dance Project including Merce Cunningham, Joe Goode, Annie Rosenthal Parr and Wymore. Well done!

Very good venue. Came for the computer science graduation for UC Berkeley. We found plenty of good seats and ended up moving several times because of that. We sat in the very last row and ended up being able to hear and see pretty perfectly as well as take good pictures. I can only imagine how nice seeing a performance here would be.