About us

TheaTours was founded in 1998 by arts journalist Laura Hitchcock and production executive Michael Hoffer to share their knowledge and love of theatre with fellow theatre and travel buffs.

The Premiere Event, a London Theatre Tour, included seven top plays and musicals, a welcoming cocktail dinner with Variety’s London critic Matt Wolf, a tour of London including backstage visits to the Theatre Museum and Theatre Royale, high tea at Brown’s Hotel, a visit to Windsor Castle and a country lunch at Cliveden, formerly a palace and now one of Britain’s leading hotels.

Since then we’ve twice visited the Dublin International Theatre Festival where Tony O’Dalaigh, who directed the Festival for 10 years, has been our keynote speaker. In addition to plays and musicals by such playwrights as Conor MacPherson and Australian actor Geoffrey Rush, we toured the city, took a Literary Pub Crawl and crossed the country to visit charming lively Galway City and starkly beautiful Connemara. We spent a week-end at Renvyle House Hotel, former home of writer/senator Oliver St. John Gogarty, on Ireland’s west coast, visited Kylemore Abbey and had a guided mountain climb that none of us will ever forget.

Laura Hitchcock presently reviews theatre for CurtainUp.com and has contributed interviews and overviews to Performances, L. A. Stage, Back Stage West, and The Hollywood Reporter, among others. She was a critic fellow at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Playwrights Conference and a panelist for the California Arts Council.

Michael Hoffer is a former actor, production executive at ABC Television and Universal Studios, and founding partner of HMC Productons. A producer of the Pilgrim Chorus and host of their international tour, he is currently associated with Pro-Travel in Beverly Hills.