About EXIT Theatre

About EXIT Theatre

MISSION. EXIT Theatre was founded in 1983 when Artistic Director Christina Augello staged an origina play in the lobby of a Tenderloin residential hotel with retired vaudevillians, young method actors and other Tenderloin residents. The mission was, and remains 40 years later, to provide a home for artists to perform and to develop an audience for that performance. We do this by providing artists opportunities to create, experiment, and grow by commissioning and producing new works, providing production support and low-cost theater rentals, and producing performance festivals for local and touring artists. The local alternative press has named EXIT Theatre “Best Local Venue,” “Best (3,000 miles) Off-Broadway Theater,” “Best Off-Beat Theatre,” and Christina Augello has been named “Best Producer” and “Working Woman of the Year.”

EXIT Theatre operates theaters in California in San Francisco and Arcata as well as producing in other alternative venues and community spaces. In addition to new works, reimagined classics, and experimental performance, we host regular magic, burlesque, improv, and storytelling events throughout the year. Come take a walk on the wild side with us!

KEY STAFF. Christina Augello is the founder and artistic director of EXIT Theatre and is an actress, arts activist and arts administrator. She has been involved with American theater for over 50 years, growing up in the 1950s as the daughter of the proprietor of a famous theater saloon and piano bar in the theater district of downtown Buffalo. In the 1960s she performed in high school theater, CYO competition plays and avant garde storefront theater in her hometown before hitch hiking cross country to San Francisco. There she founded several cooperative and women owned businesses in the Haight Ashbury while pursuing acting. In the 1970s she performed at the original Intersection for the Arts in North Beach, the first ever theatrical production at Theatre Artaud, at the Oakland Ensemble Theatre, at the Poverty Theatre and other venues. She has studied acting with Wendell Phillips, Eric Morris, Stephanie Priest and Phillip Pernaud. In 1983 she founded EXIT Theatre, in 1992 she founded the San Francisco Fringe Festival, in 2002 she founded DIVAfest and in 2007 she co-founded FRIGID New York. She was appointed by the Board of Supervisors as the small arts representative to the San Francisco Cultural Affairs Task Force which created the Cultural Equity arts funding program, served on Theatre Bay Area’s Board of Directors and Executive Committee. She has performed as part of various ensembles and toured her one-women shows around the world, including performances in Chiang Mai, Prague, Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Victoria, Edinburgh, New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. She has dedicated her life to creating and supporting small independent theater.

Richard Livingston is the managing director of EXIT Theatre. For over 50 years he has directed innovative non-profit organizations in San Francisco including in the 1960s the pioneer youth organization Huckleberry House, in the 1970s the ex-offender organization Reality House West where he co-curated the first statewide exhibit of California prisoner art, and the Cadillac Hotel, the original non-profit owned residential hotel in San Francisco.  In the 1980s he was a fellow at the San Francisco Foundation and then helped create and for over twenty years was the executive director of the Myrtle Fitschen Charitable Trust, which provided millions of dollars in small grants to aid elderly residents of San Francisco. He was appointed by the Board of Supervisors to the San Francisco Citizens Advisory Committee on Open Space, which he co-chaired and in the Tenderloin neighborhood he founded many community development, advocacy and refugee organizations, for which he received the Daniel Koshland Civic Unity Award from the San Francisco Foundation. Since 1983 he has been managing director of EXIT Theatre, responsible for its administration.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS. Geoffrey Link, President; Christina Augello, Chris Harrison, Steven Lieberman, Richard Livingston, Sharon Walton, Carmen White

FINANCES AND ADMINISTRATION. EXIT Theatre (incorporated as EXITheatre) is a nonprofit tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revue Service.  Tax returns for recent years are available at www.guidestar.org. The organization is supported by artists and volunteers, a variety of earned income from ticket sales, theater rentals, concessions and other sources and donations from individuals, government, foundations and corporations. Donations to EXIT Theatre are tax deductible under Federal and State laws.

CONTACT. EXIT Theatre, PO Box 4659, Arcata, CA 95518-4659. Christina Augello, founder and artistic director, mail@theexit.org. 415-203,2516.