Published April 12, 2024

Bringing Reno to Broadway – And Beyond

by Dennyse Sewell

The Pioneer Center has been bringing the best of touring Broadway to our community every year since 1995 through our signature Broadway Comes to Reno series. Over the past 29 years, we have shared these experiences with more than one million patrons. In 2021, we expanded the series to host each production for a full week of eight performances, providing an even greater opportunity for more people to experience Broadway productions right in the heart of downtown Reno. Most of these touring shows sell to capacity in our venue, illustrating how much our northern Nevada community appreciates the addition of this entertainment option in a landscape that has always been rich with a wide range of high-quality arts and culture offerings. 

You may not have known, however, that in addition to bringing Broadway to Reno, we also bring Reno to Broadway – and beyond.  The touring productions that play the Pioneer Center originate either on Broadway in New York City or in London’s West End. We wanted a way to connect our local audiences with the theater world at a deeper level, and what better opportunity than by inviting our community members to join us on trips straight to “the source” where we can experience brand new productions together? With that goal in mind, we started a partnership back in 2007 with Break-Away Tours, a company that specializes in creating group travel focused on exceptional theatrical experiences in these two major cultural cities.   

With a tagline of “Theatre Tours for Theatre People,” we knew we had found our ideal partners for the experiences we wanted to create for our patrons. For over 50 years, Break-Away Tours founder and owner Barry Tobias has been leading the industry in specialized theater tours, offering groups from across the country the chance to immerse themselves in theater-centric travel experiences to New York City and London.  Based in San Diego, this family business grew in 2013 when Alex Tobias, Barry’s son, came on board full-time to work alongside his father. In addition to their long track record of group travel excellence, the family dynamic between Barry and Alex adds to the warmth and genuine hospitality we enjoy when we travel with them.

Over the course of the last 17 years of our partnership with Break-Away Tours, we have had the great pleasure of hosting groups of Pioneer Center patrons on memorable trips to New York City, London, Dublin, and Edinburgh for theatrical productions, behind-the-scenes tours of historic theaters, visits to museums and other cultural sites, and so much more. Patrons who have joined us on past tours have raved about their experience, citing the quality of the trip itself along with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to immerse themselves in the theater world together with a group of like-minded enthusiasts who become great friends over the course of the trip. Many patrons sign up again for additional travel experiences with us, often inviting their friends and family members to come along for the adventure.

 

In May of this year, we will have the pleasure of hosting 40 patrons from Reno on a week-long trip to New York City. We will stay in the heart of Times Square and enjoy private tours of several famous theaters including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Apollo Theater, and Radio City Music Hall. We will also tour the Metropolitan Museum of Art, take the ferry to Ellis Island, check out the brand new Museum of Broadway, and marvel at the city’s fascinating history through special guided walking tours. But of course the most exciting part of the trip, and our primary reason for creating this travel partnership with Break-Away – the theater! Our group will be dazzled by four brand-new Broadway productions: The Who’s Tommy, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club starring Eddie Redmayne, The Wiz starring Wayne Brady, and The Great Gatsby. This year’s trip to New York City is sold out, but we will offer another trip to The Big Apple again next year that will feature all-new productions and additional historical and cultural site visits.

 

We are now setting our sights on the fall of this year, when we will take an even bigger jump “across the pond” for our very special theater tour to London and Stratford. We are thrilled to offer our community the opportunity to join us for this upcoming London/Stratford Fall Theatre Tour which will take place October 7-17, 2024. This 10-day tour will include tickets to four West End productions and two Royal Shakespeare Company productions. We will spend six nights in the heart of London and three nights in Stratford, where we will also enjoy private backstage tours of The Royal Opera House, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre.  We will visit Westminster Abbey, Parliament, the Churchill War Rooms, Camden Street Market, Hampton Court Palace (the home of Henry VIII), Shakespeare’s birthplace, Oxford, Warwick Castle, and The Cotswolds. This will truly be the trip of a lifetime, and we can’t wait to share it with our patrons!

Not only do we eagerly anticipate these memorable travel experiences for ourselves and our community members, the trips with Break-Away Tours are also a fundraiser for our 501(c)3 nonprofit theater. The Pioneer Center receives a tax-deductible donation as part of each tour fee, enabling us to invest those donated funds back into our programs and services that we provide to the community – including outreach programming for children and seniors, free events at our historic theater, educational programming, and more.

We are grateful for our 17 years of partnership with Break-Away Tours. Hundreds of Pioneer Center patrons have enjoyed seeing the world and experiencing the power of live performance together on these exceptional trips. We have made so many friends and have shared remarkable experiences, delicious meals, and unforgettable adventures together. The upcoming tour to London and Stratford is open to the entire community, and we sincerely hope we will have the opportunity to make new friends and share this exceptional travel experience with even more community members.  

Anyone interested in learning more about our upcoming tour to London and Stratford can find information and get in touch with our team by visiting our website.

Dennyse Sewell is the CEO of the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts in Reno, Nevada

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The Transformative Potential of Opportunities in the Arts by Dennyse Sewell — November 17, 2023