South Bay Musical Theatre | Noteworthy Entertainment

Opinion

SBMT’s AI Policy: Protecting People, Creativity, and Integrity

By |2025-08-14T19:16:00-07:00August 14th, 2025|Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

by Michael Paul Hirsch, Executive Director and Walter M. Mayes, Artistic Director At South Bay Musical Theatre, every costume stitch, scenic brushstroke, musical note, and marketing image tells a human story. These are crafted by artists, technicians, and volunteers who pour their time and talent into creating something authentic and memorable. Our goal is to ensure that theatre remains a hands-on, inclusive, local, and ethically grounded cultural institution where every contribution is personal, intentional, and human-made. That’s why we’ve adopted a clear new AI policy on use of artificial intelligence (AI) in our creative process about ensuring that our work [...]

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Season’s Pleadings: Selling Season 63

By |2025-08-02T13:26:04-07:00July 31st, 2025|2025-2026 Season, Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

by Doug Hughes, Marketing Director As Marketing Director for South Bay Musical Theatre, my job is to sell you on our upcoming season. That usually means hyping the shows, teasing the titles, and dazzling you with reasons to subscribe. Easy, right? Well—this year, there’s a twist. I can only talk about two of the three shows. The third one? It’s fabulous. It’s Tony-winning. It’s a total crowd-pleaser. And it’s top secret until mid-September (when the rights house lets us talk about it). So, what’s a marketer to do? I decided to flip the script. Instead of pitching shows, I’m pitching [...]

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What It Takes To Plan a Season

By |2025-07-24T11:09:16-07:00July 24th, 2025|2025-2026 Season, Behind The Scenes, Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

by Walter M. Mayes, Artistic Director What if I told you that the next season’s story begins before the curtain rises on this one? While audiences are anticipating the Abbey bells, singing nuns, and adorable Von Trapp children of our 2025/26 season-opener, The Sound of Music, I’m already deep in the next act—reading scripts, tracking rights, and assembling the puzzle that will become South Bay Musical Theatre’s ‘26-’27 season. At first glance, planning a season might seem like picking your favorite shows and hoping for the best. In truth, it’s a nuanced, months-long process—one that blends artistic passion with financial [...]

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Why The Sound of Music at SBMT is the smart choice

By |2025-07-11T09:49:15-07:00July 11th, 2025|2025-2026 Season, Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

Broadway Quality, Affordable Prices by Doug Hughes, Marketing Director If you’ve been dreaming of seeing The Sound of Music, you have two options in the coming year: wait until mid-2026 and pay over $100 per person to nab good seats for a touring production—or experience the magic much sooner, for a fraction of the cost, at South Bay Musical Theatre, your premier amateur musical theatre arts company in the South Bay. From Sept. 27 to Oct. 18, 2025, SBMT brings The Sound of Music to the intimate Saratoga Civic Theater. With just 298 seats and only 13 rows, every spot [...]

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Why We Do This: Our Common Humanity

By |2025-07-09T13:06:50-07:00July 9th, 2025|Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

“I am not a robot” by Michael Paul Hirsch, Executive Director Why do we gather in a darkened room to watch people sing, dance and step into someone else’s shoes? Because theatre reminds us who we actually are and inspires us to be who we can become. In a world that urges us to be faster, more efficient, more robotic—where productivity often takes priority over people—theatre reminds us of what it costs to forget our humanity. Community theatre is more than entertainment. It’s a shared act of creativity, empathy, and connection. It’s messy. It’s raw. It’s real. And above all, [...]

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How’s It Going?

By |2025-07-06T18:18:36-07:00June 27th, 2024|2023-2024 Season, 2024-2025 Season, Behind The Scenes, Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

by Walter M. Mayes, South Bay Musical Theatre Artistic Director As we close the books on SBMT’s 61st season, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to reflect on our work, our challenges, and our triumphs in bringing musical theater enjoyment to our patrons during the past year. When I stepped into the role of Artistic Director, my predecessor had already selected the season. Covid was still affecting us, and we were dealing with staff changes and a dwindling number of board members. With the support of Board Chair Michael Hirsch and the outstanding core of SBMT staff and [...]

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Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musicals

By |2023-07-30T13:06:05-07:00July 30th, 2023|2018-19 Season, 2023-2024 Season, Behind The Scenes, Blog-erviews!, Opinion|

Timeless Tales of Artistic Triumph: Comparing Rent with other Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musicals In the 105 years since the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded in 1918, only 10 Broadway Musicals have won that honor. SBMT’s upcoming production of Jonathan Larson’s RENT will be the fifth Pulitzer-winning musical to be staged by the company. In this blog post, we will attempt to examine some of the reasons RENT was so honored, and compare it to other musicals in the same elite group.   From the political satire Of Thee I Sing years ago, to last year’s winner, A Strange Loop, [...]

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How Rent remains relevant today

By |2023-08-14T16:47:38-07:00July 12th, 2023|2023-2024 Season, Opinion|

27 years after its Broadway run, Rent remains relevant More than a quarter century since its Broadway debut, the Pulitzer Prize winning musical Rent by Jonathan Larson has retained its significance while recently regaining its relevance. Here in the Bay Area, homelessness and access to affordable housing have only grown worse in the past few decades, and a newly ignited culture war on LGBTQ+ individuals threatens hard-earned progress made toward acceptance and inclusion. Here are a few of the ways that the show's message remains as important today as it was in 1996. Countering the backlash against diversity Rent shines [...]

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A Thank You and What’s Next

By |2023-06-03T11:48:18-07:00June 3rd, 2023|Announcements, Opinion|

A Letter from SBMT Board Chair Michael Paul Hirsch As SBMT is about to close our 60th anniversary season, I wanted to take a moment to thank our first Executive Artistic Director, Sara Dean, and our retiring board members for their service to the company as well as announce our staffing plans. Sara was originally hired as a Production Manager to improve the quality of our productions and bring professional organization and structure to the company. Over these last six years, she was promoted twice because of her contributions to the company and the community, exceeding all of our expectations [...]

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The governor’s signature could save community theatre

By |2022-09-13T10:06:09-07:00September 12th, 2022|Opinion|

by Sara K. Dean, Executive Artistic Director, South Bay Musical Theatre While live performances are definitely back, as anyone involved with community theater knows, the process of making art is now very different than it was three years ago. When we were allowed to reopen in spring 2021 after more than a year of virtual productions, it was thrilling. Finally, we could create art together—in person, and with audiences in the same room! We’ve had to learn, and relearn, many new tasks to keep artists, crew, and audiences safe. Frequent testing. Mask mandates at rehearsals and for our audience. And [...]

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