Theater and Dance at Stanford

Stanford has no professional theater company. What it has is a busy academic department and a crowd of student companies that put on everything from Thornton Wilder to brand new musicals written by undergraduates. The productions are small, the tickets are cheap and the work is often surprisingly polished. For a Palo Alto evening out, a student show at Roble Gym costs less than parking in some cities.

This page covers the 2026 to 2027 season of the Department of Theater and Performance Studies, its venues and ticket rules, the dance side of campus and the student groups, led by the century-old Ram's Head Theatrical Society. Dates come from published listings as of late October 2026. Check each group's site before you go, since student schedules shift.

Who makes theater at Stanford

The Department of Theater and Performance Studies, known everywhere on campus as TAPS, is the academic home for theater, dance and performance. It runs courses for majors and nonmajors and stages a season of productions each year. Shows are cast by audition, mostly with students. Directors range from faculty and guest professionals to TAPS graduate students developing their own work.

TAPS divides its season into two tracks. Main stage productions are full-scale shows with larger budgets and designers. Developmental stage productions are new or experimental pieces, often written by graduate students, staged more simply and sold at a flat $5. Both are open to the public.

Separate from TAPS, Stanford Live presents touring theater and dance companies, mostly at Bing Concert Hall and Memorial Auditorium. Those are professional productions with professional prices. The student groups are a third layer, independent of the department and run by students themselves.

The 2026 to 2027 TAPS season

Evening performances of the fall shows begin at 8 p.m. TAPS opens sales in stages: Our Town tickets go on sale in November 2026, Angels in America in February 2027 and the spring shows in April and May. The department's mailing list sends an alert when each show opens for sale.

Two picks stand out for visitors. Our Town is an American classic about a small town and suits a first visit to campus theater. Angels in America is a much bigger undertaking, a landmark play about the AIDS crisis in 1980s America. A student production of Part One is a chance to see it in a small room at a low price.

The stages

Roble Gym and the Elam Theater

Roble Gym opened in 1931 as a women's gymnasium on the west side of campus. Stanford spent $28 million turning it into an arts building for TAPS, keeping the Spanish Revival exterior and courtyard and adding a black box theater with flexible seating, a dance studio and rehearsal rooms. The renovated building opened to students in the fall of 2016. Its first production was the musical Spring Awakening, directed by Harry Elam, then the vice provost for undergraduate education. TAPS now lists its main stage shows in the Elam Theater at Roble Gym.

Pigott stage and the Nitery

The Pigott Theater is a smaller house inside the Memorial Auditorium complex on Jane Stanford Way, across from Hoover Tower. Developmental shows play there. The Nitery is a small experimental theater in Old Union, beside White Plaza, used for graduate repertory and student work. Our Tresidder and Old Union guide shows where it sits.

Memorial Auditorium

The main hall at Mem Aud seats about 1,700. It is the stage for the Ram's Head spring musical and for touring productions brought by Stanford Live. Ram's Head notes that its own technicians helped design the hall in the 1930s.

Tickets and house rules

TAPS keeps things simple but strict. These are the rules it publishes for visitors:

• Online only. Tickets are sold only through the TAPS website. There is no physical box office and no phone sales.
• No refunds. Tickets cannot be refunded or exchanged.
• Will call. Tickets are held at will call in front of the performance space starting one hour before curtain. You need a physical ticket to enter.
• No late seating. Once a show starts, latecomers are not admitted. Leave time to park.
• General seating unless the listing says otherwise.
• Sellouts happen. Shows often sell out before opening night. TAPS runs a waitlist policy for sold-out performances.
• Access needs. Request special assistance through the link on each production's page.

Student companies sell their own tickets through their own sites. Prices and policies vary, so read each listing.

Dance on campus

Dance at Stanford lives inside TAPS. The department's main dance event this season is Spring Rise Up 2027, with choreography by Aleta Hayes, Raissa Simpson and amara tabor-smith, on May 20 to 22 in the Elam Theater. The renovated Roble Gym was built with dance in mind, with a dedicated studio alongside the theater.

For professional dance, Stanford Live's season brings touring companies to Memorial Auditorium. Its 2026 to 2027 listings include The Surge: An Ode to Sinéad O'Connor, directed and choreographed by Sonya Tayeh, on January 30 and I AM by Camille A. Brown and Dancers on March 17. If watching makes you want to move, our guide to dance classes in Palo Alto lists studios that take adult beginners.

Student theater companies

Ram's Head Theatrical Society

Ram's Head is the oldest and biggest student company. Seven students and three faculty members founded it on September 13, 1911, to produce original sketches, songs and musical comedies. Today it stages three shows a year with more than 120 students and draws more than 6,000 audience members, according to its own history page.

• Big Game Gaieties in the fall: an original, student-written musical staged during Big Game week. The first, in 1911, was called Football Follies. The Ram's Head site lists Gaieties 2026 for November 18, the week Stanford plays Cal in Berkeley.
• Winter Show: a new collaborative work in a smaller space such as the Pigott or the Nitery.
• Spring Musical: a licensed Broadway show in Memorial Auditorium. The spring 2026 musical was Grease.

The group has had its ups and downs. Women gained full membership in 1939, when the women's group, the Ewe's Head, merged into it. Gaieties went unproduced in 1968 for the first time in 57 years and the society folded in 1971. A 1976 revival with Guys and Dolls brought it back. Its immersive Les Misérables in 2014, directed by student Sammi Cannold, became the first Stanford student production covered by Playbill. Gaieties is part of the wider Big Game week, which our Stanford traditions guide describes.

Other groups

Smaller companies come and go with each class of students. Groups that have staged work in recent years include the Stanford Shakespeare Company, the Asian American Theater Project and the Stanford Savoyards, who perform Gilbert and Sullivan. Check each group's own site or social media for current shows, since student leadership changes every year and so do schedules.

Planning a night out

Our Town performances are listed at 8 p.m. Campus parking in metered and lettered zones is free on weekdays after 4 p.m. and on weekends in many central zones, but always read the zone sign. Our Stanford parking and transit guide explains the system. Roble is on the west side of campus near Lake Lagunita, so allow extra time if you are coming from the Caltrain station on foot.

Frequently asked questions