Music circus is an American theatrical form begun in Lambertville, New Jersey

Lambertville, New Jersey

Lambertville is a city in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 3,906.Lambertville was originally incorporated as a town by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 1, 1849, from portions of West Amwell Township...

, by St. John Terrell in 1949. Established as summer stock

Summer Stock

For the article about the theatre genre, see Summer stock theatre.Summer Stock is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical made in 1950. The film was directed by Charles Walters and stars Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Eddie Bracken, Gloria DeHaven, Marjorie Main, and Phil Silvers...

, the new theatre venues primarily housed light operas and operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

s, produced in the round

Theatre in the round

Theatre-in-the-round or arena theatre is any theatre space in which the audience surrounds the stage area...

, under a circus-style big top.

History

Actor and adventurer, St. John Terrell was originally born in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. He started in show business with a carnival act and later starred on the radio show, "Jack Armstrong, All American Boy". Referred to as "Sinjun", he served in the Philippines with the USO. When a visiting touring company of an Irving Berlin musical needed performing space, Terrell suggested bulldozing a large pit for a stage in the center and audience on sloping and rising seating all around covered by a tent. This became the genesis to his original New Jersey Music Circus in 1949. Although rejected by the USO, he used his back pay, war bonds and loans after the war, to do it himself. Inspired by Greek amphitheaters, audience members sat in folding chairs no further back than 15 or 16 rows. Although a full orchestra was used, the sets were simple and low to keep sight lines clear. Props were carried on and off by stagehands, in clear view, running up and down aisles. Within 8 years 30 separate canvas topped theatres had opened in the US.

St. John Terrell's Music Circus was an instant success, and launched a wide variety of copycats, with 40 "tune tents" scattered around the country, including Cape Cod

Cape Cod

Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, Miami, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 and Sacramento

Sacramento

Sacramento is the capital of the state of California, in the United States of America.Sacramento may also refer to:- United States :*Sacramento County, California*Sacramento, Kentucky*Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. While the modern musical theatre genre was being developed on Broadway by the likes of Rodgers & Hammerstein and Lerner & Loewe, the product being produced by most summer stocks remained primarily older works. The first Lambertville season included The Merry Widow

The Merry Widow

The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...

, The Desert Song

The Desert Song

The Desert Song is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. It was inspired by the 1925 uprising of the Riffs, a group of Moroccan fighters, against French colonial rule. It was also inspired by stories of Lawrence of...

and The Chocolate Soldier

The Chocolate Soldier

The Chocolate Soldier is an operetta composed in 1908 by Oscar Straus based on George Bernard Shaw's 1894 play, Arms and the Man...

, but nothing from the contemporary Broadway canon. As modern musical theatre

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 works became more popular, music circus producers incorporated more of the contemporary works and fewer light operas.

Other Venues

Sacramento Music Circus's 10-show season in 1951 included newer works Brigadoon, Annie Get Your Gun

Annie Get Your Gun (musical)

Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley , who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler.The 1946 Broadway production...

, and the seminal Show Boat

Show Boat

Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...

. Slowly, the population of music circus theatres around the country diminished, with Terrell's big top folding in 1970. As of 2001, only three theatres of the original design still remained: Sacramento Music Circus, Southshore Music Circus (Cohasset, Massachusetts

Cohasset, Massachusetts

Cohasset is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, though it is not contiguous with the main body of the county. The population was 7,542 at the 2010 census.- History :...

), and the Melody Tent (Hyannis, Massachusetts

Hyannis, Massachusetts

Hyannis is the largest of seven villages in Barnstable, Massachusetts. Also it is the commercial and transportation hub of Cape Cod and was designated an urban area as a result of the 1990 census. Because of this, many refer to Hyannis as the "Capital of the Cape"...

, on Cape Cod), the latter two venues no longer producing musical theatre, but serving as concert sites. In 2002, Terrell's open air music circus model ceased to exist as Sacramento Music Circus lowered its canvas tent for the last time to make way for a new enclosed theatre-in-the-round—the Wells Fargo Pavilion

Wells Fargo Pavilion

The Wells Fargo Pavilion is a theatre venue, located in Sacramento California and owned by California Musical Theatre & Sacramento Theatre Company.- Overview :...

. As a nod to history, the new arena theatre was still topped by fabric—a Teflon-coated fiberglass fabric manufactured by BirdAir.