Broadway By the Bay is a not-for-profit corporation for the public benefit which provides full scale musical theatre productions of professional quality at family prices. The company continues to grow in professionalism, attendance and stature.

Historically, Broadway By the Bay is an outgrowth of a San Mateo Recreation Department program originated in the 1950s known as “Music Camp.” Each summer, that program employed the talents of young musicians, singers and actors to produce a musical (primarily Gilbert and Sullivan) which was staged at the camp site in La Honda, California. That program grew to the “San Mateo Community Theatre” in 1966 with a production of “Oklahoma” at the College of San Mateo Theatre. In 1967 San Mateo Community Theatre produced “West Side Story” into what is now the San Mateo Performing Arts Center and the program continued to grow. The San Mateo Community Theatre became an official non-profit organization in 1978. In 1983 the Board of Directors expanded the focus of the company and changed the name to “Peninsula Civic Light Opera.” In 1999, a decision was made to gradually change the name to “Broadway By the Bay” in order to more accurately reflect the fact that the group stages Broadway-type musicals as opposed to operatic productions.

BBBay continues to grow with nearly 4,000 season subscribers and over 5,000 single show ticket sales per production. The company made a major contribution to the national theatre scene by co-producing the full scale world premiere of “The Prince And The Pauper” in August 1993. In the Summer of 2007, BBBay broke their box office records with Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and pulled off an unforgettable musical coup with Ahrens & Flaherty: Words & Music, which was hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…a feather in the cap of Broadway By the Bay.”

After spending many wonderful years in the San Mateo Performing Arts Center the PAC will be closing down for renovations in 2011. Consequently, this created an opportunity to move BBBay’s productions down the Peninsula to the Fox Theatre in Redwood City beginning with our first show of the 2011 Season, Forever Plaid.

The company is consistently acclaimed by critics and has received over 130 nominations and over 46 Outstanding Achievement Awards by the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle awards since 1992.