California Musical Theatre
The Wells Fargo Pavilion, California Musical Theatre's home for the Sacramento Music Circus
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| Formation |
1951 Formerly known as the Sacramento Light Opera Association |
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| Type | Theatre group |
| Purpose | Broadway Musicals |
| Location |
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| Website | http://www.californiamusicaltheatre.com/ |
1951
California Musical Theatre is the largest nonprofit arts organization (primarily producing musical theatre) in the state of California and the city of Sacramento's oldest professional performing arts organization. Its summer stock theatre, Music Circus, has been producing Broadway-style musicals since 1951.
In 2002 Music Circus produced its last season under a traditional canvas circus tent. The following year California Musical Theatre opened the Wells Fargo Pavilion. Built over the original concrete tent foundations, the new facility was designed to emulate a circus tent to continue the Music Circus tradition of a canvas big top. The enclosed, permanent architecture of the arena theatre is covered by an insulated space-age fabric.
In 1949 the original Music Circus began its operations in a vacant field in Lambertville, New Jersey. Begun by St. John Terrell as a hybrid, mixing musical theatre within a circus tent, the new musical theatre performed in the round. The unique experience gained popularity through the 1950s and 1960s. Theatres copied the format and name, eventually spawning similar Music Circus theatres along the East Coast as far south as Miami.
In California, producers Russell Lewis and Howard Young began scouting a location to build their theater and were lured to Sacramento by Sacramento Bee president Eleanor McClatchy. The theatre opened with a production of Show Boat, the same show which opened the original Lambertville theatre as well as the North Shore Music Theatre. In 1951 the Sacramento Music Circus tent went up for the first time under the operations of what was originally known as the Sacramento Light Opera Association. McClatchy had been a patron of the Sacramento Civic Theatre (now known as Sacramento Theatre Company). Its facility had a large parking area that would be the home to the original Music Circus tent.
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