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The Music Went 'Round and Around The Story of Musicarnival Cleveland
Theater Series
courtesy of our partner, Atlas
Books |
Spotting
a trend in the early 1950s of staging summer theater in the round under tents,
Clevelander John L. Price Jr. decided to give it a try. Consulting a local
statistician to determine the geographical center of the culturally inclined
population, the bull’s-eye fell in Warrensville Heights, a Cleveland
suburb that was also the home to Thistledown Race Track. Price opened his
Musicarnival there, on the grounds of the race track, with a production of Oklahoma! in
the summer of 1954. The Music Went ’Round and Around tells
the story of this unique summer theater and of its ebullient founder, John
L. Price Jr.
Price’s
venture was one of the last commercial legitimate theaters established in
Cleveland. In its heyday the Musicar-nival had a capacity of 2500 and presented
an average of eight to ten shows each summer. The backbone of the repertoire
consisted of such musical classics as Carousel; Kiss Me, Kate; Wonderful
Town; Fanny; Paint Your Wagon; and The Unsinkable Molly Brown. The
summer schedule also featured popular solo acts, such as Louis Armstrong,
Henny Youngman, Tom Jones, 
and
even burlesque. Occasionally Price tried to sneak in an opera, letting the
popular shows support these operatic flings.
For the first eleven seasons Price principally used a resident
stock company, occasionally bringing in a visiting star, if available and
right for the role. Toward the end of the 1960s, 
however,
Price was forced to adopt the star system to keep his tent filled. Dropping
the stock company, he brought in packaged productions generally headlined
by popular singing or television stars. Both offerings had strong followings,
and Musicarnival kept the torch of musical theater burning brightly in Cleveland
until 1975, when declining attendance finally forced its closing.
The Music Went ’Round and Around is the first book in the Cleveland Showtime Series.
John Vacha received the Herrick Memorial Award from the Early Settlers Association of the Western Reserve, given in recognition of his theatrical history, Showtime in Cleveland (Kent State University Press, 2001). He has also written From Broadway to Cleveland: The History of the Hanna Theatre in the Cleveland Theater Series published by Kent State University Press.
