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Jan 12San Diego is an Ideal Place to Enjoy Live Theater
The city of San Diego is California’s birthplace. Perfectly situated on Southern California’s Pacific Coastline, the city has several great venues for live theater and entertainment. Spectators can enjoy classical music and dance, comedy shows, concerts and family entertainment. The San Diego Symphony Orchestra performs at the Copley Symphony Hall, a French Rococo theater built as the Fox Theater in 1929. Its huge chandelier, which hung over the hundred thousand people who attended the opening night, still overlooks the plush seating. In 1984 the hall was renovated at a cost of five million dollars, which brought this amphitheater into a state of the art venue for musical entertainment, from symphonies to rock and roll shows. The symphony orchestra received a $120,000,000 donation from the Chairman of Qualcomm, the largest ever made to a symphony orchestra.
The Civic Center Plaza Theater is located within a modern high-rise building in the Civic Center Plaza, also known as the Security Pacific Plaza. The theater is home to the San Diego Opera, which was ranked by Opera America as one of the country’s top ten opera companies. This center has seating for almost three thousand patrons and presents some foremost musical productions such as West Side Story, Mamma Mia, and The Color Purple. They are currently planning Rock of Ages, The Addams Family, Wicked, and Memphis, the Musical. Outside of the plaza are picnic tables, shade trees and a water fountain portraying the bow of a ship cutting through the seas. The Old Globe Theatre is situated within a complex of three theaters, known as the Simon Edison Centre for the Performing Arts. Dating back to 1935, the theatre offers fifteen plays and musicals each year. The structure was copied in architectural style from London’s Globe Theatre where Shakespeare’s plays were presented and was honored with a Tony Award as the best regional theatre. Their play calendar includes plays like A Room With a View, Richard III, Inherit the Wind and The Scottsboro Boys.
Originally constructed with the idea of bringing professional sports to San Diego, the Valley View Casino Center has also become a setting for the best in live entertainment, such as the Radio City Musical Hall Christmas Spectacular. The Center has brought in artists like Elvis Presley, and now Disney on Ice., Cirque du Soleil, Eric Clapton, Taylor Swift, and a group of musical performers including Zapp, Heatwave, Evelyn Champagne, King and Barbara Mason. Joan Kroc, heiress to the MacDonald’s fortune, funded the Joan B. Kroc Theatre in the Kroc Performing Arts Center. This 600-seat theatre is a state-of-the-art venue with a motorized orchestra pit and a three thousand square foot stage. It hosts concerts, dance and live theatre performances. The theatre also focuses on education and family-oriented wholesome entertainment, such as the Broadway play Once Upon A Mattress,, flamenco dance performances and jazz concerts. They offer a junior theatre company to help children learn the art of the theatre.
San Diego is certainly an ideal destination for visitors and residents who enjoy a great variety of live theater and other forms of live entertainment.
