Celebrating 30 Years of Broadway Comes to Reno

Published May 17, 2024

Celebrating 30 Years of Broadway Comes to Reno

Here at the Pioneer Center, we’ve been hosting a wide range of local and touring arts performances since 1968. For over 56 years, countless thousands of events have brought our theater to life and captivated our fellow community members. Almost three decades after the doors of our theater first opened, the creation of the Broadway Comes to Reno series was a major turning point for our non-profit organization. Although Broadway national tours would occasionally make stops in Reno over the years, it wasn’t until the Pioneer Center officially launched the Broadway Comes to Reno series in 1995 that our local community could consistently experience multiple Broadway tours direct from New York in our hometown every year.

Filer image element — *The inaugural season of Broadway Comes to Reno at the Pioneer Center in 1995*

The very first Broadway Comes to Reno season in 1995 featured an iconic lineup of classic favorites: CATS, Les Miserábles, 42^nd Street, Evita, and Fiddler on the Roof. Thanks to the enthusiasm of our arts-loving community here in northern Nevada, that flagship season launched what would become the most popular and most well-attended annual series in the history of the Pioneer Center. Over the past 30 years, audiences have gathered in our historic auditorium in the heart of downtown Reno for sold-out runs of Jersey Boys, Beautiful the Carole King Musical, The Book of Mormon, Mamma Mia!, The Producers, Hamilton, and so many more. We have hosted headlining stars in iconic roles, such as Sally Struthers in Hello Dolly!, Ralph Macchio (“The Karate Kid”) in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Morgan Fairchild in The Graduate, Marilu Henner in Annie Get Your Gun, Barry Williams (“Greg Brady”) in The Sound of Music, and Toni Tennille in Victor/Victoria. Coming up in June of this year, we will see Richard Thomas (from television’s The Waltons) in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. And, of course, there are also those shows that people want to see again and again… and again! CATS has prowled the aisles of the Pioneer Center five different times over the years, and STOMP has rattled the rafters of our theater six different times.

Our original partner in the Broadway Comes to Reno series was JAM Theatricals, an entertainment presenter based in Chicago. We were their very first touring Broadway market, and with this new partnership in 1995, the Pioneer Center became the first theater in the State of Nevada to present full annual seasons of Broadway touring productions. In 2019, JAM Theatricals was acquired by one of the largest and oldest Broadway producing companies, The Nederlander Organization. JAM Theatricals was renamed Nederlander National Markets, and they remain our presenting partners today. In 2021 as we emerged from the pandemic closure, we expanded the Broadway series to full eight-performance weeks which allow us to present bigger, first-run tours much more often. This also provides more people with the opportunity to experience Broadway and be a part of the national theater conversation without having to leave Reno.

Throughout the current season alone, over 100,000 patrons will have attended a Broadway touring production right here in northern Nevada, thanks to the Broadway Comes to Reno series. We are proud to continue providing our fellow community members with these exciting and engaging arts experiences. We are grateful to the patrons who return to the Broadway shows with us year after year, including our season subscribers who help make this series possible. Some of our subscribers have been with us every year since 1995, and those long-term supporters have experienced just under 175 different Broadway productions on the stage of the Pioneer Center. As we reflect on 30 years of Broadway performances in Reno, we thought it would be fun to share an alphabetical list of all the shows that have been part of the series to date. We hope you will enjoy recalling special nights at the theater with family and friends for many of these past productions.

This major anniversary milestone will be celebrated all season long, and we can’t wait to welcome everyone back to the Pioneer Center for a new season lineup that will kick off in September of this year. The 30 th Anniversary Season of Broadway Comes to Reno in 2024-2025 will feature a total of seven touring productions, five of which are northern Nevada premieres and two of which are favorite titles back by popular demand. We are so excited to share Mrs. Doubtfire, Beetlejuice, The Book of Mormon, Some Like It Hot, The Wiz, Mamma Mia!, and A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical with our community. All of the information about next season and how to become a subscriber can be found on our website, pioneercenter.com.

Click here to see Broadway Production History

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