Tent revival

The organizers of the Music Circus series like to point out that around 150 years ago, when Sacramento was the booming gateway to the Mother Lode, hopeful prospectors—and those who provided them with services, on either side of the law—used to gather for shows and entertainment in candlelit tents, the newly built city being too hastily made to have a proper brick-and-mortar theater back then.

Music Circus, which has been staging summertime musicals under a big-top tent since 1951, views itself as part of that tradition. Of course, the Music Circus has never presented anything as provocative as Gold Rush-era entertainer Lola Montez and her now legendary “spider dance.” The series originally served up polite operettas à la Gilbert and Sullivan and Broadway shows of the ’30s and ’40s, sometimes featuring TV personalities or even Joe Namath, the erstwhile NFL quarterback who briefly flirted with a showbiz career. At one time, the tent also hosted concerts by the likes of Liberace and Jose Feliciano.

Over the years, the operettas have largely disappeared, and TV personalities have given way to leading actors with Broadway experience. (No complaint from this quarter—the Broadway-trained talent generally sings better.)

This summer, the venerable series gets ready to turn over another leaf. Longtime producing director Leland Ball is retiring and turning over the reins to Richard Lewis, son of the late Russell Lewis, who co-founded the series back in 1951.

This will also be the final season in a conventional tent. Come September, construction will begin on a permanent, tent-like structure that will be complete by summer 2003. Management promises that it will “retain all the informality of the old tent, but with air conditioning, new [permanent] seats, and all sorts of other creature comforts.”

But for this year, you’ll still get to dare the summer heat, which sometimes lingers in the 90s at show time, wear shorts and T-shirts, settle into a canvas-backed chair and cool yourself with the mist from a spray bottle when the need arises.

For incoming honcho Richard Lewis, the new responsibilities will continue a lifetime association with Music Circus. His parents met at Music Circus, where his mother sang in the chorus during that first season in 1951. Lewis was born the following year, and as a boy he sold programs, for two cents apiece, outside the tent. He also appeared in a few shows as a child. “But I couldn’t carry a tune except in a briefcase, so I stopped that,” he recalls.

By 1970, Lewis was a production assistant, running scenery, fetching food and meeting talent at the airport. This led to positions as assistant stage manager, production stage manager, lighting designer, general manager, assistant producer and, since 1992, managing director.

“I personally would put the tent up,” Lewis recalls, adding that he did it for several years. “There’s a lot of nostalgia attached to laying out the canvas, hauling the ropes and pulling everything up the poles. Of course, these days everybody uses safety harnesses, so it’s much safer than it used to be.”

2002 Music Circus productions:

July 8-14: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Sensible ladies in long skirts domesticate the backwoods boys in this dance-oriented show.

July 15-21: Man of La Mancha. This musical about Don Quixote was a Tony winner in 1966.

July 22-28: The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Western gal gets rich, meets European royals, and finds herself aboard the Titanic.

July 29-August 4: The Sound of Music. Some people adore it, others loathe it, but (for better or worse) everybody knows the songs.

August 5-11: Camelot. Even medieval royals had their problems with romance back in the age of enchantment, but at least they didn’t have tabloids covering their every move.

August 12-18: Smokey Joe’s Cafe. A revue of Leiber and Stoller songs from the ’50s and ’60s, including “Stand by Me,” “On Broadway” and “Love Potion Number Nine.”

August 19-25: Paint Your Wagon. Miners and other varieties of gold diggers look to strike it rich in the Mother Lode.