About
White Rock Players' Club

Founded in 1944, the volunteer-based White Rock Players’ Club is a non-profit society with an established history that spans 74 years and more than 380 theatre productions. 

For 15 years the White Rock Players’ Club performed in a converted store on Marine Drive. Then in 1958, they won the Dominion Drama Festival, which was the first time a community theatre had won the title of “Canada’s Best Theatre Club.” The White Rock Players used the prize money, along with funds raised within the White Rock community, to purchase 1532 Johnston Road, a former Jehovah Witness hall. Twelve members co-signed a mortgage, and using mainly volunteer labor they erected the stage block, which also still houses the dressing rooms, costume and props storage, and workshop. The hall became the auditorium, with 176 seats.

On March 12, 1960, the first performance opened in the new White Rock Playhouse. It was a great success and the White Rock Players never looked back. By 1966 they paid off the building and from that point on have been able to operate almost grant-free. In the early 1970’s a lobby was added to the front of the auditorium, containing a small concession, washrooms, and box office.

In 2004, to celebrate the club’s 60th anniversary, a project was launched to renovate the White Rock Playhouse with the help of the Rotary Club of White Rock.  It re-opened in 2006 after exactly 9 months (!) with a new lobby, auditorium and balcony along with 218 new seats. Coast Capital Savings were a primary donor to the project and were granted naming rights, so the building was called the Coast Capital Playhouse until 2019, but is still wholly owned and operated by the White Rock Players’ Club. 

Today, the White Rock Players’ Club is still a much-loved community theatre group, producing five shows a year, which include comedies, thrillers, dramas and the ever-popular Christmas Pantomime – in fact, the Club is very likely the longest continuous presenter of Pantomimes outside the UK, with a different show every year since 1954.