Bringing the WOW factor to San Diego
La Jolla Playhouse held its annual outdoor theater festival April 24-27 on UCSD campus
by Makayla Hoppe
Originating in 1947, La Jolla Playhouse has been breaking the mold of live theatre by sending productions to Broadway and beyond. However, nowhere is this more apparent than the theater’s annual Without Walls (WOW) Festival. The weekend-long event celebrates the art of live theater outside the traditional stage. Each year, productions are spread out, sometimes in outdoor venues and sometimes in specially built enclosures. The 2025 festival held over 25 productions from artists all over the country and the world.
WOW history
The first iteration of the WOW Festival began in 2011 when Artistic Director Christopher Ashley traveled to other cities’ theater communities to see what their festivals had to offer. Inspired by the engaging and groundbreaking pieces of art, Ashley knew that he had to start something similar in San Diego.
“All of it was new,” said Director of Experiences and Activations Mia Fiorella, “but we started to see very, very quickly that this work was keeping people very engaged in a new way, and they had really personal experiences with it.”
As the festival developed over the years, new productions and formats were tested until the Playhouse decided to launch it in earnest. Taking off in 2013, the first true WOW Festival was held at UCSD, near the Playhouse’s campus location. Over the last 10-plus years, the festival productions have spread to locations all over San Diego, including Barrio Logan, Liberty Station and The Rady Shell.
The festival production team both seeks out performances for the festival and accepts submissions to be included.
“We look at site-specific work, interactive work, immersive work, anything that really kind of puts the relationship of the audience and the artist in a different frame than our standard theatrical stuff that we do on our stages, which is really fun,” said WOW Festival Producer Amy Ashton.
What’s new in 2025
The WOW Festival is no stranger to performances in cars, having launched “The Car Plays” — small, 10-minute dramatic scenes played out in a car — early in the development stage, and 2025 is no different. Ashton described one of this year’s productions from a Canadian circus and acrobatic group known as Flip Fabrique.
“They have a piece called ‘Summer Break,’ which (is where) they drive a bus down to the venue,” Ashton said. “It is equipped with all of their apparatus and things. And it’s very much themed on the idea of summer camp. So, it’s very playful and really high energy, lots of acrobatics and circus acts and things like that, all centered around this, this bus, this rolling kind of apparatus.”
“Summer Break” performer and local San Diegan Sarah Cooper described the performance as a nostalgic callback to sleepovers, campfires by the lake and breaking out into song.
“Something that I really love about Canadian performance is that they really enjoy art,” Cooper said. “Anywhere in French Canada, they appreciate art so much. And the fact that I’ve been hearing from everyone here about the WOW Festival and bringing art back to San Diego really makes me happy.”
Setting the stage
While nationally and globally recognized artists are celebrated at the festival, local San Diego organizations are also included in the fun. UCSD is not only happy to host the Playhouse and festival but is also eager to be included in the program.
“We’ll kind of be focusing our efforts on another side of campus from the last year,” Ashton said. “So, we’re really excited to explore some new space, which always informs kind of the work that’s happening.”
UCSD and La Jolla Playhouse have worked side-by-side for many years. The two organizations have come to take and give inspiration to one another.
“The spirit of UC San Diego’s relationship with the Playhouse has always been one of collaboration and support,” said UCSD Campus Performance and Events Executive Director Colleen Kollar Smith. “The collaboration between the Playhouse and our theater and dance department has brought together extraordinary artists, innovative new works and high production values on campus and the theater districts.”
This year’s festival used multiple campus venues, including the Epstein Family Amphitheater, the Geisel Library, the Price Center, the Qualcomm Institute and Warren Mall. The 25-plus productions played at different times throughout each day during the festival’s weekend.
The WOW Festival continues to grow, and with 2025 being the eighth iteration of the event, its size and scope will influence San Diego’s art community for many years to come. Other California cities, including Sacramento and San Francisco, have held other large festivals impacting the cultural economy within the state, and for Southern California, that event is the La Jolla Playhouse WOW Festival.
This project was produced by Makayla Hoppe as a published learning experience in JMS 550 Multimedia News Lab, part of the Journalism and Media Studies Program at San Diego State University.
(Photo and video by Makayla Hoppe)
To See or Not To See 