The Vancouver West Side Theatre Society was established in 1994 on the ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilil� w̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. The Society proudly operates the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre and presents the annual Chutzpah! Festival of International Jewish Performing Arts.

Chutzpah! is the only performing arts festival in the Metro Vancouver region devoted to presenting professional artistic work through a Jewish lens, and indeed one of very few in the entire country. The Festival's home is the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, a key mid-sized full-service venue in the Vancouver theatre ecology. Located in the Jewish Community Centre in the rapidly developing Oakridge neighbourhood, the Rothstein rentals program hosts professional artists as well as community performing arts and cultural groups representing Metro Vancouver's diverse communities in a supportive, professionally staffed and equipped venue. 

Chutzpah! Festival programming is chosen to represent the breadth and diversity of the performing arts, with an emphasis on the eclecticism and diversity of the international Jewish community and its interrelationships with non-Jewish artists and communities. Since its inception 25 years ago as a small cultural festival for the Jewish community, the Festival has grown into an internationally acclaimed presenter that plays a key role in the region's cultural ecology, offering local, national, and international performing arts programming encompassing theatre, dance, storytelling, comedy, music, and multimedia work, as well as master classes, residencies, and outreach projects. Our artistic residency program welcomes at no rental cost Metro Vancouver-based artists to create and refine new work with full access to the Rothstein and its equipment. The resulting work is presented in the Chutzpah! Festival as it progresses, offering artists and audiences the opportunity to develop an ongoing relationship. Resident artists offer workshops, showings, and other public outreach opportunities to community audiences including, children, seniors, teens, and preprofessional arts students. 

We see our role as a leading presenter of Jewish performing arts as requiring engagement in examining what it means to be part of a multicultural community with intersectional identity in a global diaspora, and representing that diversity on stage. Our artists apply the lenses of their lived experience to share their joys, struggles, values, cultures, and stories, engaging with diverse audiences and each other. We are committed to engaging artists representing the Jewish community's full diversity and centering marginalized voices, including those who are Deaf or disabled, racialized and queer artists. Artists of other cultural heritage also take part in the festival, providing intercultural dialogue and artistic collaboration.