The Naples Players

Our Impact

The Naples Players is known for its deep community impact and consistent excellence, earning national recognition and major awards for its accessible programs, high-quality productions, and innovative partnerships that reach tens of thousands of people each year.

The Naples Players is a community-based nonprofit theater where exceptional access and high participation define the experience. While our mission is rooted in belonging and local connection, the way our campus operates reflects a level of activity, engagement, and demand that places us among the most active nonprofit theaters in the country.

Our Mission

At The Naples Players, we build community through exceptional access to the power of theatre.

Our Vision

We envision TNP as a cultural hub that leads a shift in the national perception of how theatres can impact their communities. Learn more about our model below...

Our campus is alive year-round. Multiple performance spaces, education programs, rehearsals, and community partnerships operate side by side, allowing people to experience theatre not only as audience members, but as students, volunteers, artists, and collaborators. In a typical week, classes, performances, and community programs overlap by design, creating a space that feels vibrant, welcoming, and in constant motion.

What truly sets The Naples Players apart is participation. Each season, audiences fill more than 80% of available seats, a level of engagement that is uncommon even among large nonprofit theaters. Annually, we welcome more than 70,000 patrons and engage over 800 volunteers, thousands of students, and hundreds of artists - all local, all volunteers - across performances and education programs. This sustained participation allows earned revenue to play a meaningful role in supporting daily operations, so philanthropic support can focus on expanding access, education, and long-term impact rather than simply keeping the lights on.

For scale, The Naples Players operates alongside other year-round nonprofit theaters across the country, including Everyman Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, TheatreSquared, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, and Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. While each serves its community in different ways, The Naples Players is distinguished by the breadth of activity taking place on its campus across performances, education, and community engagement throughout the year.

What makes The Naples Players unique is how this scale is paired with a deeply community-centered model. Volunteers work alongside professional staff. Students learn within real productions. Audiences encounter work that is ambitious, relevant, and accessible. The result is a theater that feels both welcoming and alive, where participation is not an add-on, but the foundation.

Beyond performances and education, The Naples Players serves as a platform for community impact. Through partnerships with organizations such as the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, NCH Healthcare System, and the STARability Foundation, theatre is used as a tool for connection, communication, and well-being. Programs like ArtRx integrate the arts into healthcare and caregiving environments, while collaborations with public safety, schools, and social-service organizations extend the reach of the campus far beyond ticketed performances. This kind of sustained integration between a producing theater and healthcare, public safety, and social-service partners is rare nationally, particularly at the scale of a year-round, community-centered theater. It reflects a belief that access to theatre is not only cultural, but civic, and that a busy, engaged campus can strengthen the community in ways that are both visible and deeply human.

The Naples Players is not defined by size alone, but by how fully the community shows up. Our success is visible in full houses, busy classrooms, meaningful partnerships, and a campus that belongs to the people it serves. Our goal is not only to serve our community well, but to demonstrate how a community-centered theater can operate at scale, setting a national example for access, participation, and impact.