San Jose Theaters Celebrate Two Major Milestones With San Jose Civic & California Theatre

Though often overshadowed by neighboring San Francisco and Oakland as a tour destination, San Jose, a city of about 1 million people, has its own historic downtown entertainment district, featuring four 500- to 3,000-capacity venues all within walking distance of the 17,500-seat SAP Center, known as the “Shark Tank” as home for the NHL San Jose Sharks.

The 3,322-cap San Jose Civic (along with the 500-seat Montgomery Theater in the same building), the historic 1,122-seat California Theatre and the 2,600 Center of the Performing Arts host some 550 cumulative events over the year, all clustered around the city’s downtown Convention Center.

All four venues are owned by the city and managed by Team San Jose, also known as Visit San Jose, a non-profit marketing firm and visitors bureau created in 2003 to encourage local tourism, which has since turned into a $20 million company with more than 300 employees.

Cleveland native John Ciulla first joined Team San Jose 17 years ago and is currently general manager & director of entertainment for the four theaters (TSJ also manages the nearby Convention Center). He spent six years overseeing what was then dubbed Smirnoff Music Centre in Dallas (now the 20,000-cap. Dos Equis Pavilion) before coming to San Jose. Ciulla noted the fine balance between preserving the architectural integrity of his historic venues balanced against making them state-of-the-art and competitive in terms of production and amenities.

“We try to maintain the vision of the original designers by working with architectural firms that have been involved in these venues for decades by overseeing the renovations,” he explained. “We make sure we have the newest in sound, theatrical lighting and video projection, ADA compliancy. We’ve also expanded and upgraded our concessions. But none of that takes away from the look of the theaters.”

San Jose Civic and California Theatre are both architectural and historical landmarks. The 3,322-cap. San Jose Civic is marking its 90th anniversary this year, having originally opened in 1936, with a gala relaunch in 2012 after a $25 million renovation project. The site has been the scene of a variety of historic events, including a 1963 Barbra Streisand performance during her first-ever tour as well as a Bob Dylan concert with the Hawks on Dec. 12, 1965, a tape of which recorded by beat poet and author Allen Ginsberg is now in the Stanford University library.

That same year, a Rolling Stones show there was attended by novelist and psychedelics pioneer Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, resulting in several people dosed with LSD at the afterparty. On Feb. 21, 1968, The Who launched their first-ever U.S. tour at the Civic, while in 1970, then-President Richard Nixon made headlines when he was confronted by anti-war protesters. Other performers who have graced the stage at the San Jose Civic include Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, the Grateful Dead, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Journey, among others.

Upcoming shows at the San Jose Civic include comic Bert Kreischer, lo-fi rocker Alex G and medium Tyler Henry in May with Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band scheduled for June. Nederlander had originally been the venue’s exclusive booker since its 2012 reopening, but now the room is available for both large and indie promoters, including AEG, Another Planet and Goldenvoice.

“Nederlander helped us with both the restoration and the relaunch of the venue,” said Ciulla, who explained the promoters brought in City National Bank as a naming partner, a relationship which ended after a five-year run in May 2019. “They enabled us to grow as a facility, secure inventory, make it a stop for artists and build our reputation as a desirable concert venue. They helped consult with the city and the renovation team to ensure that the build-out was done to industry standards. They were very instrumental in putting San Jose Civic back on the map.”

The ornate 1,122-capacity California Theatre will celebrate its centennial next year in April, having originally opened in 1927 as a movie and vaudeville house designed by the same architects, Weeks and Day, who worked on Oakland’s Fox Theater and San Francisco’s Mark Hopkins Hotel. The venue, which had been shuttered for more than a decade, underwent a three-year $75 million renovation before reopening in September 2004, and serves as the home for opera, ballet and musical theater (take that Timothee Chalamet!).

Other notable music venues in the San Jose area include the 2,500-cap outdoor Mountain Winery in nearby Saratoga with its annual summer slate, and the Hammer Theatre Center, a complex operated by San Jose State University several blocks from the four-theater cluster featuring the 520-seat Sobrato Auditorium. For superstar headliners, there is also Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, home of the NFL San Francisco 49ers since 2014 when it opened, which just hosted Super Bowl LX in February a decade after doing the same for Super Bowl 50.

“It’s not unusual for acts to do a second play in San Jose after performing in San Francisco or Oakland,” said Ciulla, demonstrating San Jose’s strength as its own market in the South Bay, about an hour from San Francisco, and urban center of Silicon Valley. “Or, we might pick up a second routing five months later.”

The downtown San Jose neighborhood where the four theaters are located has become its own mixed-use entertainment district, with nearby San Pedro Square Market, featuring restaurants, bars, retail stores, live outdoor concerts and historical tours, adjacent to the Peralta Adobe Plaza.

“There’s plenty of construction, new office buildings and housing,” said Ciulla. “The downtown area is growing all the time. It gets pretty busy, especially during the weekends.”

Another element bringing crowds to the neighborhood is block parties, where streets are closed off for food vendors and live entertainment, drawing anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 people downtown.

“There were several that took place in conjunction with this year’s Super Bowl and March Madness, right in front of City Hall,” added Ciulla. “It’s really helped draw people to the area, with all that foot traffic creating business opportunities for local retailers and restaurants.”

As theater owners, the city of San Jose has been proactive in supporting the local live event community, backing it with strong financial commitments.

“Having lived here, I’ve seen a major thrust to expand and bring in more entertainment, activities and music festivals,” said Ciulla. “It’s all part of growing the area, showing we’re a market that deserves to be considered alongside San Francisco and Oakland.”

“Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” is not just a classic Bacharach/David song recorded by Dionne Warwick. It may well be the chamber of commerce’s new motto as it attracts world-class entertainment to spur the city’s rapid growth while still preserving its impressive past legacy.