Idyllwild Arts Academy is a private school located in Idyllwild, in the San Jacinto Mountains and San Bernardino National Forest, within western Riverside County, California.

[2] Joy in the Making (1967) is a documentary about its summer arts program made by filmmaker Virginia Garner, who became a Trustee Emeritus of the Board of Governors and Trustees of the Idyllwild Arts Foundation.

It offers a college preparatory program for grades 9–12 and post-graduates, with training in music, theater, dance, visual art, creative writing, film, and interdisciplinary arts.

It was the first independent boarding high school for the arts in the western United States.

[25] Author Justin Cronin confirmed on Twitter that Idyllwild Arts Academy eventually becomes the community called First Colony in his book The Passage as humanity tries to survive one hundred years into a vampire apocalypse.