![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.comstocksmag.com\/sites\/main\/files\/imagecache\/lightbox\/main-images\/9869d8f1-50a8-4773-8f95-b82dab844ff7_1_105_c.jpeg\" "\\"Music")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n Music Circus\u2019 round theater brings an intimacy to its stagings.
\n (Photo courtesy of Music Circus)\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n What emerged was a case study in how a nonprofit cultural
\n organization survives for three-quarters of a century \u2014 and what
\n happens when a city decides, generation after generation, that an
\n institution is worth sustaining.\n<\/p>\n
A five-year experiment<\/p>\n
\n Lewis and Young were experienced theatrical producers who had
\n mounted eight Broadway productions and 17 national tours after
\n World War II. But Broadway was an unforgiving business. By 1950,
\n a recent failure had bruised their finances and confidence, and
\n they began looking for a more durable model.\n<\/p>\n
\n They found one in Lambertville, New Jersey, where producer John
\n Terrell was staging summer musicals in the round beneath a tent.
\n Arena staging required less scenery than a proscenium production;
\n a tent cost far less than a permanent theater; and at summer\u2019s
\n end everything could be packed away. Lewis and Young began
\n looking for a Western location.\n<\/p>\n
\n Then Eleanor McClatchy heard about their plans.\n<\/p>\n
\n The publisher of\u00a0The Sacramento Bee\u00a0was also an ardent
\n theater lover who had studied playwriting at Columbia University
\n and helped create the Sacramento Civic Theater (later Sacramento
\n Theatre Company). In late 1950, she met Lewis and Young at the
\n Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel and asked what it would
\n take to bring Music Circus to Sacramento.\n<\/p>\n
\n Young\u2019s answer: money.\n<\/p>\n
\n McClatchy and her associates assembled an offer other cities
\n could not match: a site adjacent to the Civic Theater,
\n free\u00a0Bee\u00a0advertising and a startup loan and financial
\n support for five years. Lewis and Young agreed to produce ten
\n musicals each summer, a new show every week.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n \n Theater in the round allows stages to be visible from all angles. \n The first green-and-yellow-striped tent rose at 15th and H \n But box-office success did not make the economics easy. By the \n In 1953, Music Circus became the nonprofit Sacramento Light Opera Balancing artistry and the bottom line<\/p>\n \n Lewis and Young \u2014 and every leader who followed \u2014 understood that \n Their original producing model was industrial in its intensity: \n They were especially cautious about fixed costs. For decades, \n The artistic model evolved as well. By the 1980s and 1990s, \n At the same time, Ball diversified the business. In 1989, the From canvas to a permanent home<\/p>\n \n By the late 1990s, the old tent had become increasingly difficult \n What began as an effort to improve the seating became something \n Financing it required creativity. A conventional bank loan was<\/a><\/p>\n
\n (Photo courtesy of Music Circus)\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n streets in 1951. With just 13 rows around the stage, audiences
\n sat unusually close to the performers. Singers and actors came
\n from New York and Los Angeles because Lewis and Young could
\n attract them. Sacramento wholeheartedly embraced
\n theater-in-the-round and the new summertime experience.\n<\/p>\n
\n end of the first two seasons, expenses outpaced income. Raising
\n ticket prices seemed the obvious answer. Young found another.\n<\/p>\n
\n Association. Nonprofit status brought formal governance and
\n accounting, but it also qualified the company for exemption from
\n the 20 percent federal admission tax, allowing ticket prices to
\n remain static while the company retained 20 percent more revenue.
\n It also carried an obligation to operate for the \u201cpublic
\n benefit.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n artistic ambition and financial discipline were not opposing
\n values. The discipline was what made the ambition possible.\n<\/p>\n
\n one show played at night while the next rehearsed by day. Yet
\n they surrounded themselves with first-rate professionals and
\n refused to treat summer theater as second-rate theater.\n<\/p>\n
\n Music Circus shared the H Street property with Sacramento Civic
\n Theater, using it during the summer rather than carrying a large
\n year-round facility. Elsewhere, successful summer theaters built
\n permanent houses only to discover that neither programming nor
\n audience demand could support them 50 weeks a year. Most
\n eventually disappeared. Sacramento avoided that trap.\n<\/p>\n
\n producing director Leland Ball was moving the company away from
\n heavy reliance on celebrity casting and toward excellence across
\n the entire production \u2014 acting, choreography, design and music.\n<\/p>\n
\n organization launched what became the Broadway Series, presenting
\n national tours at the city-owned Community Center Theater while
\n continuing to produce Music Circus in the round at the H Street
\n site. Over time, touring became the larger economic engine,
\n typically generating more than 60 percent of annual revenue and
\n providing a financial cushion for the producing side of the
\n company. Artistic ambition and fiscal restraint were not
\n competing priorities; they were parts of the same strategy.\n<\/p>\n
\n to defend as the home of a major professional theater. The chairs
\n sagged, the summer heat was punishing and technical possibilities
\n were limited.\n<\/p>\n
\n larger. City and county leaders initially committed $66,000 each
\n annually for five years. Board members and management began
\n asking whether those funds could help support a permanent
\n pavilion that preserved the intimacy of theater in the round
\n while adding modern comfort and technology.\n<\/p>\n
\n not realistic because the nonprofit lacked sufficient assets to
\n secure one. The eventual model combined projected ticket and
\n concession revenue, naming rights, facility fees, municipal
\n financing and philanthropic commitments. The numbers worked only
\n if the city and county extended their annual contributions from
\n five years to 25. They did.\n<\/p>\n