From side gig to 25-year company

1988

Zuni Collective, named after Zuni Cafe, where multiple members worked as servers, performs Slawomir Mrozek’s “Vatzlav” on Battery Chamberlain, near Baker Beach in the Presidio.

1989

Z Collective presents under its new name its first show, Franz Xaver Kroetz’s “Help Wanted: Scenes from Everyday Life.” The company goes on to gain a reputation for its site-specific work. As Ruthe Stein wrote for The Chronicle in 1995, “the company became known as much for where it performed as for what it performed. A play about the horror of corporate life could be seen in a Financial District office tower; another, about AIDS, played in the lounge of an HIV research institute.”

1992

Z Collective disbands. “The main issue is that we were done with the projects we came together to do,” collective member David Dower told The Chronicle’s Steven Winn.

1993

Dower founds Z Space Studio as a successor to Z Collective. With the mission of developing new work, it moves into 938 Howard St., sharing office space with Avelino Associates, which is owned by Z Space Studio board chair Michael Palladino. (In an email, Dower writes that Palladino’s gift of space was “a HUGE donation for us at that time and the only reason we ever got going.”) In this same year, Word for Word Performing Arts is founded as part of Z Space Studio’s Artists in Residence program.

1997

Z Space follows Avelino Associates to 1360 Mission St. “No one has thought longer or worked harder on the play development process than David Dower, artistic director of the Z Space Studio,” Winn wrote for The Chronicle in 1999. In that same article, Dower said that if “Berkeley Rep is a home for mature artists,” then Z Space “is a home for artists to mature.”

2005

“The People’s Temple,” commissioned by Z Space and written by Leigh Fondakowski with Greg Pierotti, Stephen Wangh and Margo Hall, premieres at Berkeley Rep; it goes on to win the 2006 Will Glickman Award.

2006

As Z Space’s New Works Director, Lisa Steindler organizes the Bay Area performances of a nationwide, yearlong project to present all 365 plays in Suzan-Lori Parks’ “365 Days/365 Plays.” At least 30 local companies participate, Steindler recalls in an email.

2008

Steindler takes over as Z Space’s executive artistic director when Dower heads to Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.

2009

Z Space moves from SoMa to the Mission, signing a 10-year lease on its first real home, in the former Theater Artaud, a 13,000-square-foot, 230-seat warehouse space inside a repurposed can factory. The space is part of Project Artaud, a complex of artist live/work studios.

2012

Lori Laqua becomes Z Space’s executive director.

2013

Z Space acquires the former Traveling Jewish Theatre, renaming the 86-seat venue Z Below. Word for Word’s “In Friendship” is the first show in the newly renamed space. In that same year, Z Space gets a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to host Peter Sinn Nachtrieb as playwright-in-residence, a grant that was renewed in 2016.

Deanne Fitzmaurice / The Chronicle 1995 David Dower, founder of Z Space, at Magic Theater.

Eric Luse / The Chronicle 1990 Members of the Z Collective pose for a portrait with the PG&E building, where “The Bug” was staged in a 17th floor conference room, behind them.

Clayton Lord 2006 Actor and co-director Marc Bamuthi Joseph and directorproducer Lisa Steindler rehearse one of the “365 Plays.”

Katy Raddatz / The Chronicle 2006 Hag (Nicole Finis Smith, left), Princess (Sirena Masket) and Prince (Harris Masket) in “Fine Animal,” the first in San Francisco’s part of the nationwide “365 Days/365 Plays.”