Empire Arts Collective, operating as Spectrum Stage, is a Sacramento-based nonprofit arts organization and public venue dedicated to inclusive, artist-driven, community-centered performing arts.
Founded in 2016 as an arts collective, we’ve grown into a working creative space where people learn, experiment, play, and perform in the same place. Artists build their practice, relationships, and bodies of work here, while audiences return often enough to build real familiarity. Artists and community members grow together over time.
We carve out and protect space for artists and stories often overlooked by traditional institutions, operating as an ongoing creative home rather than a one-off themed event or seasonal spotlight. We’re building a place where performance feels immediate, human, and connected to the people in the room.
Spectrum Stage serves the Sacramento community with a focus on artists and audiences who haven’t always had access to mainstream arts spaces.
We feature stories from LGBTQ+, BIPOC, disabled artists, women, and others who rarely see their experiences centered on traditional stages. The work presented reflects a wide range of lived experiences and creative approaches so the work resembles the community around it.
Creative joy is a form of community resilience. Our programs offer visibility, belonging, and shared meaning at a time when many marginalized community members are experiencing isolation, forced silence, exclusion, fear, and ongoing social stress.
We believe people connect more deeply when they recognize themselves in the work being shared. Performing arts can build empathy, spark conversation, and create lasting relationships between strangers.
We value accessibility, collaboration, creative risk-taking, and sustained participation. We believe artists grow through repetition and trust, and audiences return when they feel invited rather than instructed.
There isn’t just one way to be part of Spectrum Stage. People learn, create, perform, and gather here, often moving between roles over time.
Mainstage
Our primary program for developing performing artists through full-scale productions. Mainstage projects bring together performers, directors, designers, and crew in a structured, collaborative process that builds skill, expands range, and deepens artistic voice. Each project culminates in a public run, but the focus is on the growth of the artists involved and the stories they are equipped to tell, with an emphasis on LGBTQ+, QTBIPOC, disabled, and neurodivergent perspectives.
Education
Classes, workshops, and hands-on training for designers and technical artists, including lighting, scenic design, costumes, makeup, stage combat, and special effects. Education programs are built to expand access, build practical skills, and support artists at different stages of experience.
Original Works
Artist-driven projects focused on the creation and development of new, original material. This program supports playwrights, directors, and interdisciplinary artists in building work outside traditional production structures, with space to experiment, collaborate, and refine ideas. Projects may take many forms, from new scripts by local playwrights and solo work to cross-disciplinary performances and one-off presentations.
Community Events
Low-pressure gatherings that keep artists connected between productions and training programs. These events create space for relationship-building, creative exchange, and community support without the demands of a formal production process.
Across all programs, artists and audiences can move between participation and observation, creating a continuous cultural space rather than isolated events.
Our mission is to incubate unique, inclusive performing arts opportunities that create joy and community for a variety of experience levels.
1.) Sustain the Space
Rent & utilities are $2,200 each month, and our location allows us to rehearse, teach, and perform under one roof. Your donation helps keep our beautiful space open and accessible to artists and audiences.
2.) Fund Teaching Artists & Ongoing Training
Artists grow through consistent access to training, not one-off opportunities. This fund supports the instructors leading workshops in performance and design, ensuring they are paid fairly while expanding access to classes for the community. Your donation helps more artists learn, practice, and develop their craft over time.
3.) Build a Space That Works
Our space has to function as a rehearsal studio, classroom, and performance venue, often all in the same week. Your donation supports seating, staging, lighting, and storage improvements that make the space more flexible, functional, and ready for the artists using it every day.
Our commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) is part of our core principles. Our organization recognizes the reality that cultural biases and systemic racism impact communities of color in the Sacramento area, and beyond, and it is part of our ongoing goals to dismantle those systems through racially equitable practices.
We look for creative ways to rethink systems and policies to better serve and support communities of color whenever possible and are in an ongoing process of examining and questioning the practices that have been traditionally deemed “professional,” which have been part of the oppression of marginalized communities, including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).
As we create our events, programs, and collective projects, we continuously strive to provide an inclusive, accessible environment with a low barrier to entry for anyone interested in experiencing the beauty and joy of the performing arts.
We hope to continue and expand our focus on creating works that are open and welcoming to adults of every age, ethnicity, race, color, religious background, nationality, ability, gender identity, and sexual identity.
Organization name
Spectrum Stage
other names
Empire Arts Collective
2016
Mission Category
Arts, Culture & Humanities
Operating Budget
$0-$50,000
Organization Need
Funding: Unrestricted
Local Counties Served
Sacramento
Equity Statement
Equity Statement
Address
2424 Castro WayPlacer County, CA, US
Sacramento County, CA, US
Yolo County, CA, US