StageWest seeks to increase the understanding and enjoyment of life, society, and the world through the presentation of contemporary theatre. We strive to cultivate new opportunities for artists and audiences in Central Iowa to experience the diverse world of American and World Theatre. StageWest aspires to a continuing pursuit of artistic excellence and seeks to make the story of the play become the experience of the audience.

StageWest is a resident company of the Civic Center’s Stoner Theater. The Civic Center of Greater Des Moines is located downtown, between 2nd - 3rd Streets and Walnut – Locust Streets. The Main Stage of the Civic Center seats more than 2,700 for Broadway shows and concerts and is the premiere facility in Des Moines for a wide variety of entertainment.

The Stoner Theater is located on the main floor of the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines, midway between the east and west lobbies. The Stoner Theater outside entrance is located at the southeast corner of the building, at 2nd and Walnut Street. Admittance to the building is also available through the Ticket Office doors and skywalk entrance.

The Civic Center Ticket Office is always open two hours prior to any StageWest performance.

Doors to the Stoner Theater will open thirty minutes prior to the performance. Subscribers will have the opportunity of preferred seating when the doors first open. All seating is general admission.

See Tickets page for information about purchasing individual show tickets.

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”
-Oscar Wilde

StageWest Founders: Tom Blackett, Pat Henson, Jim Jacobson, Ron Lambert, Laurince D. McElroy
In Memory: Anne Juneau, Nancy Schneider

1995-1996

A group of theatrical friends and collaborators meet, discuss, organize and dream of forming a new theater company in Des Moines. Let’s find a barn and put on a show. We do. StageWest is born. Sponsored by the AIDS Project of Central Iowa, we present the premiere production of Voices That Care: Stories and Encouragements for People with AIDS/HIV and Those Who Care for Them, an adaptation for the stage written by StageWest founding member Laurince D. McElroy, presented at the First Unitarian Church.

1997

StageWest presents its first play at the Civic Center’s Stoner Theater, the American premiere of Out of Spite: Tales of Survival in Sarajevo, based on the diaries of Elma Softic, during the Bosnian war of the early 1990s.

The life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose -- and is a test of the quality of a nation's civilization.
- John F. Kennedy StageWest

Producing Artistic Director

Board of Directors

General Counsel