The year was 1978. Sony introduced a revolutionary portable stereo called the Walkman. Ain’t Misbehavin’ won the Tony for Best Musical and The Deer Hunter an Oscar for Best Picture. The Yankees beat the Dodgers in the World Series (and would not reclaim their crown until 1996), and Hollywood amused moviegoers with National Lampoon’s Animal House and Grease. China finally lifted its ban on the works of Aristotle, Shakespeare and Dickens. Dianne Feinstein became Mayor of San Francisco and across town Carol Channing brought down the house in Hello, Dolly!, the first show in the inaugural Best of Broadway series. We have certainly come a long way.

“Anything that we, at SHN, have been able to accomplish in these last 30 years has been due to the unwavering support of our subscribers,” acknowledged SHN Founder and Artistic Director Carole Shorenstein Hays. “The trust they place in us is not something we take lightly as we endeavor to be a relevant arts organization in the Bay Area. SHN has been able to take risks that smaller theater companies might not have and I believe our ability to be bold has contributed to the maturity of the Bay Area’s art scene.”

Steven Winn who has been reviewing and reporting on the Bay Area arts and culture scene for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1980 agrees. “As a great road town—one of the best in the country—San Francisco could have been treated as just another lucrative stop for touring shows. Carole didn't do that. She took chances and produced things like Fences and Caroline, or Change that wouldn't have been done here or anywhere else for that matter. She believed in straight plays when Broadway was forgetting them. The big institutions set the tone for a city's arts culture, and SHN has fostered an air of theater's importance as both an entertainment and an art form. It reflects the city's sense of urbanity and sophistication as well as its sense of fun.”

If you chart the growth of SHN shows over the last three decades, you can see the evolution from being simply a tour stop for road shows, long after the Broadway engagement, to becoming a theatrical destination. According to Carole, “producers see the Bay Area, with our diverse and sophisticated population, as an ideal test market which is why so many shows premiere here. As exciting as that is for our audiences to experience, it also requires some guts and courage for SHN as the presenter. But this is the part that engages me, gets me up in the morning and ready to work—the ‘not knowing part.’ It is our being an active participant in the discovery of art that most intrigues me.”

That search and discovery began in 1977 when the struggling San Francisco Civic Light Opera (CLO) moved from the Curran to the Orpheum Theatre. The CLO had been a perennial favorite in the Bay Area since 1940 when its founder Edwin Lester collaborated with Homer Curran to launch an affiliate to the successful Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. The dual-city CLO kept the Curran filled by presenting everything from Noel Coward and Gilbert & Sullivan to Show Boat and Desert Song, and eventually became the Western anchor for Broadway road shows. As a child, Carole regularly attended productions with her parents, but through the 70s the CLO lost its audience.

“You’ve got to be relevant, you cannot take anything for granted. You can’t just assume that people are going to come.” So said Carole, then 28, when she partnered with family friend and second-generation theater producer James Nederlander to lease the Curran Theatre. In addition to Hello, Dolly!, the first Best of Broadway (BOB) series featured Man of La Mancha starring Richard Kiley, Annie, Bubbling Brown Sugar, The Grand Tour starring Joel Grey and Dracula starring Frank Langella. This first SHN season delivered the caliber of stars and shows that enthused San Francisco audiences.

In 1979, the partners purchased and refurbished the Golden Gate Theatre and reopened to launch the 1980 BOBA Chorus Line starring Donna McKechnie. This first two-theatre season also featured a mix of new plays and classic musicals as star vehicles—The Music ManCamelot, My Fair Lady starring Rex Harrison and I Do! I Do! starring Howard Keel and Eleanor Powell, Whose Life is it Anyway?, They’re Playing Our Song, Eubie and The Kingfisher. series with starring Dick Van Dyke, Richard Burton in

As the societal shifts influenced new theatrical works and spectacular special effects dominated first-run movies, audiences came to expect more than a celebrity from a theatrical production. When the CLO ultimately folded in 1981, SHN purchased the Orpheum Theatre and undertook a $25 million renovation to accommodate the larger, “spectacle” musicals including Miss Saigon, The Lion KingWicked. The show itself had become the star. and

Director of Group Sales Operations Debra Stockon, who started as an usher at the Golden Gate Theatre and will celebrate her 30th anniversary with SHN in December, has seen first-hand how audiences have changed over the years. “When Sweeny Todd was first here, people walked out in horror. That would not happen today. Audiences are more tolerant. We have gone from an organization that had The Music Man, Camelot and Annie, to shows like Caroline, or Change and Spring Awakening. The classics are great but it is fantastic to see the number of new and exciting productions that have come in and how the audience has embraced them.”  

What has changed for Carole since she began presenting Best of Broadway in 1978, “is the range of theater experiences we can offer, which is a reflection of the wider diversity of our audience. The people who flocked to see Jersey Boys are not necessarily the same people who waited in line to see Spring Awakening multiple times, or the ones who are at the first night of a compelling show like Doubt.  But, what they experience is similar—that moment of being changed or challenged by a performance you witness.”

As the digital age ushered in remarkable technological advancements, all aspects of the commercial theater evolved. “I came from a sound background not a theater background and then theater sound was a relatively new field,” admits Margot McFedries, the Head of Sound at the Curran Theatre who began as an on-call stagehand in 1986.  “It’s been interesting to see the technical changes over the years. Not only in sound, but in all departments of the theater. Nothing was computer controlled when I started.”

How audiences purchase tickets and subscriptions have continually retooled with the changing technology. “Like most commercial businesses in the Arts, theater has slowly transformed itself from an art form to an entertainment form,” explains Vice President of Ticketing David Cushing who started taking phone orders at SHN in 1981. “We’ve gone from hard ticket phone orders to on-line computerized bar-coded, print-it-out-at home, forward-it-to-a-friend ticket management.”

What shows have had the greatest impact over the years?  Based on the number of weeks of a run — Phantom, Les Miserables, The Lion King and Jersey Boys. The highlights for Steven Winn include “Rent, Show Boat, and Carole’s adventurous season of off Broadway plays at the Marine Memorial including a brilliant production of The Lisbon Traviata and Ian McKellan in Richard III.” For Carole, the greatest thrill has been standing in the back of the house for almost any show and watching the audience more than the performance. “One time that stands out for me is the first preview of Wicked in 2003 during their pre-Broadway engagement here. The creative team had been working so intensely for weeks, rewriting and tweaking the show, that we all just held our breath that night. But after the first scene, when Idina Menzel made her entrance as Elphaba and the audience broke into a roaring ovation before she had even sung a note, I knew they had a home run!”

Throughout the years, SHN’s commitment to bring the Best of Broadway to Bay Area audiences has enhanced the tourist’s experience of San Francisco. “Under the umbrella of the ‘Only in San Francisco’ brand, the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau (SFCVB) employs several themes to market San Francisco. One of the most important themes is Arts & Culture,” explains Laurie Armstrong, Vice President of Marketing & Communications. “SHN is a very important part of that theme. The city is known as a center for the highest quality and creativity, especially in the performing arts. The fact that SHN not only brings award-winning shows to San Francisco but also creates and incubates them underscores the leadership of our brand. SHN gives visitors a reason to come to San Francisco and a reason to come back again.”

This draw is particularly significant when a show sits for an open-ended engagement as Jersey Boys and Phantom did at the Curran and Wicked will do beginning in January at the Orpheum. “Wicked will be a major part of our marketing programs in 2009,” Laurie admits. “We'll be promoting the show on our website and in our consumer advertising. We'll be promoting the show to convention planners and attendees and tour operators and travel agents both in the US and around the world. We expect the show to have a long run in San Francisco, which allows us to use it as a long-term attraction.”

Today, with a fulltime production staff based in New York, SHN has become an integral part of the Broadway community. When planning the creative life of their projects and where their shows will tour, other Broadway producers look to SHN, guaranteeing an exceptional range of theatrical experiences for Bay Area theatergoers. In the next phase, Steven Winn hopes SHN’s year-round presence in New York provides “continued riskiness. Perhaps some ventures outside of the three theatres to expand the range and possibilities. A continued reciprocity between New York and San Francisco. Ticket prices and other initiatives to make live theater affordable in a punishing economy.”

As Carole enters the next phase, what remains the same, as it was when it all began 30 years ago, is the symbiotic relationship between the audience and the art form—with each becoming more sophisticated in response to technological advances and broader perspectives on the cultural conversations we are having. “Theater, which may seem to be an ‘old fashioned’ art form is, still, in many ways the most relevant because it is immediate, happening in the moment and the audience is truly a part of that experience—without them there would not be a performance at all.”

To read more about Carole Shorenstein Hays, click here.
For more about SHN, click here.
For SHN Show History, click here.

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