CMT San Jose Blog

PHANTOM, a mesmerizing adaptation of Gaston Leroux' 1909 novel The Phantom of the Opera, is traditional musical theater in the finest sense. The Tony award winning authors of Nine, Yeston and Kopit, have created a sensation that captivates audiences with beautiful songs, intriguing characters, and a profound love story. The performance features some of the most well-known American musical theater songs Where in the World, You are Music, Without Your Music, and My True Love and You Are My Own. PHANTOM, which first performed in 1991, has staged over 1,000 productions around the world. Yeston’s approach added details Leroux never imagined and helps portray Erik (the Phantom) as less of a monster and more of character that, despite outward imperfections, is good.

The ultimate celebration of American Musical Theater, A CHORUS LINE, shares the story of 17 dancers competing for eight coveted spots in the chorus of a Broadway Musical. Through the audition they bare their souls while sharing stories of their childhood, ambitions, fears, and experiences in show business. The original production of A CHORUS LINE won nine Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama when it opened on Broadway in 1975. It went on to become the longest running musical on Broadway achieving an astonishing 6137 performances. 

There are currently hundreds of camps offered in the San Jose/Silicon Valley area. Picking one for your child may seem like a daunting task, so we put our heads together and pulled from our organization’s 35 years of summer camp experience to come up with a list of 10 things to consider when picking the best summer camp for your child.

Pacienca y fe. Patience and faith. Growing up in a Mexican-American family I heard a lot of Spanish phrases like this one. Some were similarly inspirational; “que dios te bendiga” (may God bless you) would often fall into conversation whenever you felt like wishing someone well. Other phrases were meant to teach a lesson; “los flojos trabajan doble” was used a lot in reference to chores (my mother still loves to remind me that lazy people always end up working twice as hard). It did not come as a surprise to me that Lin-Manuel Miranda picked a phrase like “pacienca y fe” to tie together the theme of In the Heights.

One of the nation's top youth theater's, CMT San Jose, added world-renowned choreographer Michael Balderrama to the artistic staff for their upcoming show, IN THE HEIGHTS. Michael Balderrama will Associate Direct and Choreograph the next CMT Mainstage production of "In The Heights" alongside CMT Artistic Director Kevin R. Hauge.

On October 19, 2012 CMT San Jose was honored by the Board of the Capital Club and Club Corp Charities. Every year the Capital Club chooses a non-profit recipient and hosts an evening with food, wine and dancing. This year CMT was picked in conjunction and in celebration of our 45^th anniversary season. The evening was sold out and the crowd was treated to an amazing meal by Michelin chief Michael Miller (not to be confused with CMT’s Managing Director).  Kevin Hauge, CMT’s Artistic Director composed five separate segments of entertainment by all different age groups of CMT performers. The evening also included both a live and silent auction.

As the opening of one of our organization's biggest shows quickly approaches, the topic of "what happens behind the scenes" came up during a recent staff meeting. It was interesting to hear, out of the staff of around 16 who work for a musical theater company, how many don't know much about the technical side (or backside, if you'd like to think of it that way) of live theater. 

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Professional, union, non-union, equity, non-equity….what’s it all mean?

We are overjoyed to have been granted yet another incredible opportunity this season to debut a theater production in San Jose that has only recently been released to the public.  In the Heights, the winner of four Tony awards in 2008, has taken months for us to secure. We’ve waited patiently as the rights organization, Rodgers and Hammerstein, filtered through numerous requests from multiple theatre companies to finally choose us as a producing house for this innovative piece.  This addition to our season is guaranteed to make its mark not only on our performers and audiences but on our organization's history as well.