The superstar’s donation to Cal Shakes comes at a critical time in Bay Area theater.
Oakland native Zendaya got her start at California Shakespeare Theater, and now she’s paying it forward.
The East Bay theater company announced Wednesday, Feb. 21, that the Emmy-winning star of “Euphoria,” “Malcolm & Marie,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and both parts of the “Dune” film franchise has given the theater $100,000 via the Women Donors Network.
“We are deeply grateful to Zendaya and the WDN for their partnership, and their generous grant of $100,000,” Cal Shakes Executive Director Clive Worsley said in a statement.
He told the Chronicle that while the theater has previously received gifts of this size, “under the current climate it’s quite significant to us.”
Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, Cal Shakes is best known for its outdoor summer season at the Bruns Amphitheater, which boasts awe-inspiring panoramas of the Orinda hills. Zendaya’s mother, Claire Stoermer, worked at the theater as house manager for 12 summers while Zendaya was growing up. The future fashion model, singer and all-around influencer would help hand out programs to audiences and hang out backstage with actors before curling up with blankets in the back of the venue to watch performances, Stoermer told the Chronicle in 2020.
Eventually, in part to overcome her natural shyness, Zendaya started taking classes with the company. Former Cal Shakes instructor Trish Tillman recalled a straight-shooting, tomboyish pupil.
“I think that her early work with Cal Shakes, with me and watching those actors onstage and various other teachers, taught her the value of how to do the work, how to get into that text, how to understand the people around you, how to harness what her natural tendencies and qualities are,” Tillman told the Chronicle four years ago.
Zendaya’s donation comes at a critical time in Bay Area theater, which is still reeling from the pandemic. Cutting Ball Theater just launched an emergency fundraising campaign to stay open in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, and theaters including TheatreFirst, Bay Area Children’s Theatre and PianoFight all folded within the past year. Custom Made Theatre Company has gone into hibernation, and even the much larger TheatreWorks Silicon Valley had to organize a fundraising drive in order to complete its current season.
Cal Shakes, which has an annual budget of $3 million, itself stood on unsteady ground until very recently.
Last year the theater didn’t produce any shows of its own, operating exclusively as a rental house. Worsley told the Chronicle that when he took over in 2022, there was no game plan for the theater’s future programming or survival. This year, by contrast, the theater is mounting a homegrown “As You Like It,” directed by Elizabeth Carter and running Sept. 12-29.
