Blog-erviews!

If You Liked These SBMT Favorites, You’ll Love What’s Coming Next

By |2025-10-07T13:51:59-07:00October 7th, 2025|2025-2026 Season, Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

By Doug Hughes, SBMT Director of Marketing South Bay Musical Theatre’s 2025–2026 season of Noteworthy Entertainment brings you a whole new spin on stories you know and love. Whether it’s through a new adaptation, a rare revival, or a creative concert experience, each show invites you to see something beloved in a new light. To give you a better sense of what’s in store, I’ve matched each upcoming production with SBMT favorites from past seasons going back a decade and a half — because if you liked those, we think you’ll really love these. Mainstage Musicals (11 performances each) If [...]

Protect Yourself from Ticket Scams

By |2025-10-01T14:51:25-07:00October 1st, 2025|Announcements, Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

Buy Smart, Buy Direct by Michael Hirsch, Executive Director At South Bay Musical Theatre, we want every part of your theatre-going experience to be joyful from the moment you buy your tickets until the final curtain call. Unfortunately, some third-party ticket resellers try to insert themselves into the process, showing up very high in search results and charging far more than the actual ticket price. With The Sound of Music almost completely sold out, these scarce tickets make good targets for scammers. These unauthorized sellers can cause a number of problems: Inflated Prices: Tickets listed on third-party sites may cost [...]

Behind the Curtain with Janet Miller

By |2025-09-29T10:25:53-07:00September 29th, 2025|Behind The Scenes, Blog-erviews!, Meet The Cast, Video Link|

We sat down with Janet Miller, who plays Baroness Elberfeld and one of the nuns in SBMT's production of The Sound of Music. In this interview, she tells us how the stage musical differs from the Julie Andrews movie, how history repeating itself brings renewed relevance to the story, and what brought her back to the stage for the first time since before the pandemic. Watch the four minute video, or read the transcript below. My name is Janet Miller and I'm a nun and I am the Baroness Elberfeld in this production. Is this show any different than the [...]

Behind the Curtain with Maura Goetzke

By |2025-09-24T14:32:07-07:00September 24th, 2025|Behind The Scenes, Blog-erviews!, Meet The Cast, Video Link|

We sat down with Maura Goetzke, who plays the Louisa in SBMT's production of The Sound of Music. In this interview, she radiates excitement as she describes all the fun she's having. She tells us why she auditioned, what she's learning in rehearsal from choreographer Francesca Cipponeri and vocal director Rachel Michelberg, what it's like being part of a double cast of children, how she got started in theatre—and what she aspires to, and offers advice for anyone else who shares the dream of being a performer. Watch the five minute video, or read the transcript below.  Hi, my name [...]

Fresh Faces, Fleeting Seating

By |2025-09-22T13:40:27-07:00September 22nd, 2025|2025-2026 Season, Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

By Doug Hughes, Director of Marketing One of the joys of community theatre is discovering new talent, and South Bay Musical Theatre’s current production of The Sound of Music demonstrates that in abundance. Of the 40 cast members bringing this beloved story to life, an impressive 30 are making their SBMT debut. That includes our Captain von Trapp, played by Brad Satterwhite, who has graced stages all over the Bay Area and recently wrapped up a powerful run in A Few Good Men at Woodminster. All 13 of the young actors who play the von Trapp children (across two alternating [...]

Behind the Curtain with Mohamed Ismail

By |2025-09-19T11:30:24-07:00September 19th, 2025|2025-2026 Season, Behind The Scenes, Blog-erviews!, Meet The Cast|

We sat down with Mohamed Ismail, who plays the role of Max Detweiler in our upcoming production of The Sound of Music, to talk about the expanded role Max has in the stage play (with two songs that are not sung in the movie), where we've seen him most recently, how he got started, and how he and his real-life wife Jessica Whittemore are looking forward to playing opposite one another in this outing. He tells us why he doesn't look like his headshot, introduces us to the large cast, and makes an urgent plea to each of us to [...]

Announcing our spring show for 2026

By |2025-09-15T09:15:10-07:00September 15th, 2025|2025-2026 Season, Announcements, Blog-erviews!|

by Doug Hughes, Director of Marketing On a sweltering summer day in New York City, music spills from the corner bodega, laughter echoes from the fire escapes, and every block seems to hold a story. That’s the world of In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning love letter to his neighborhood. Long before Hamilton took the world by storm, Miranda introduced audiences to a vibrant community full of dreams, traditions, and tough choices. This spring, South Bay Musical Theatre invites you to step into that neighborhood and feel the heartbeat of Washington Heights right here in Saratoga. Set over the [...]

Children and Art

By |2025-09-05T11:12:47-07:00September 5th, 2025|Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

The arts just make better humans. by Michael Paul Hirsch, Executive Director "Children and art… children and art…” Several recent events in my personal life have inspired me to do something that I‘ve been putting off for over 10 years: updating my will. Big changes like sending my children away to college, becoming empty-nesters (or “free-birds” as my wife likes to call it), purchasing an electric vehicle, and making a major career change, are just a few things that have happened since last I updated my will. Life goes by so fast that as a meditative and deliberate person, I [...]

The Sound of Music: A Beloved Classic with Fresh Resonance

By |2025-08-28T10:24:54-07:00August 28th, 2025|2025-2026 Season, Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

Lauren D'Ambrosio as Maria and Brad Satterwhite as Captain von Trapp in “The Sound of Music,” which plays Sept. 27 to Oct. 18, 2025 at the Saratoga Civic Theater by Walter M. Mayes, Artistic Director and Director of The Sound of Music Few musicals hold as cherished a place in the American imagination as The Sound of Music. Since its Broadway debut in 1959 at the height of the Golden Age of the American musical, it has delighted millions with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s unforgettable score and the inspiring story of the von Trapp family singers. Many know the [...]

Running a Theatre Company

By |2025-08-21T17:00:15-07:00August 21st, 2025|Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

by Michael Paul Hirsch, Executive Director Since stepping in to SBMT's Executive Director position in July, I have been delving into documents and spreadsheets, agreements and archives to compile, organize, and analyze over 60 years of SBMT producing theatre here in the South Bay. My goal was to become as much of an expert on SBMT as I could and to form a point of view of what it means to run a theatre company in 2025 and into the future.  Over the last few weeks, I created a benchmarking framework so that I can stay on the pulse of [...]

Go to Top