This is a lovely local theater that I have come back to many times over the years, and I have…read morealways enjoyed their productions. They operate in portable buildings behind the Triton Museum. It is a casual setting with plenty of parking. They always have an intermission and offer complimentary beverages and cookies. It is a great choice for an evening out; an opportunity to see a live performance at a reasonable price and support your local arts! Most recently we saw an entertaining rendition of "The Hound of the Baskervilles"!

Cute little community theater showcasing some really good talent. Performing arts as being kept…read morealive in places like this little hidden gem and we have to support them. I've been to multiple shows and the performances have always been top notch. They are clever with few props and simple stage setup. Keep going Santa Clara players!

Wife got two free tickets to this performance by Rhiannon Giddens. Who? Checked on the internet…read moreand thought she sounded decent on YouTube videos. Only problem was that it was Friday at 730pm at the Louis B Mayer theater, as in Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Wife bought the tickets expecting me to drive all that way in rush hour traffic, and find the theater at night in unfamiliar surroundings? Yes. Why do you think she married me? Left our house in Sunnyvale at 6:15pm, and 7 miles, 40 minutes and 30+ traffic signals on El Camino Real reached Santa Clara University. LBM theater address is 500 El Camino Real, but that's the address for the whole Santa Clara University. The theater is on the opposite end of the campus, at least a half mile from El Camino Real. All nearby street parking taken, with on campus street parking restricted to vehicles with SCU parking permits. The central parking garage is located near the stadium, but that was completely across campus. Closer parking garage at the corner of Alviso and Franklin St. Take El Camino Real, right on Lafayette, left on Franklin. Took 10 minutes of DWA to find it, at night. Only spaces near the garage entrance are compact spots. Backed into a compact spot, so named as next to a concrete wall. So you are pulling out blind. $5 to park, with you having to enter your license plate number on the receipt. Guess this is to prevent cheapskates from loaning the ticket to a friend for reuse. Parking free after 8pm, but wouldn't you know it, but the show starts at 7:30pm. 5 minute walk from the 4 story parking garage to the theater, the entrance of which is not visible from the street. The usual bag check at the entrance, with hand searches, just like at Disneyland. Sign says no food nor drinks permitted in theater. Ticket electronically scanned. Wife wisely goes to the bathroom before the play starts. Inside a very modern theater, full house, with seating 395-525 depending on configuration, with movable seats up front. 20 rows of seats, two aisles, with stairs going down, and hand railings on the side. Stadium seating at the bleacher area, with your knees at head height of the people in front of you. Great panoramic viewing. Got to stand up to let people get by. One poor dude gets stuck behind a lady wearing a fedora hat the entire show. Francesco Turrisi plays the piano, drums and accordian, while Rhiannon Giddens plays the violin and the banjo. Bluegrass music, Irish ballad music, folk music, instrumentals, and Rhiannon singing. Rhiannon featured on Ken Burns country music, and performed for the Obamas at the White House. Her songs tell stories of historic black womanhood and survival. If it's good enough for Obama, it's good enough for me. Intermission the wife races to the bathrooms, while I take my time. Men's bathroom has 5 urinals and 2 toilets, with line backed up a dozen deep in no time. Women's restrooms have even longer lines. Assume 7 stalls for the women, or at 3 minutes per use, 49 women can be accommodated in the 20 minute intermission. The other 150 women are just going to have to hold it for the 2 hour performance, as the theater was designed for university students age 18-21 with strong bladders. Get back to my seat, just as the college age ladies behind me, remove their bare feet off the top of my seatback. Some people are still learning proper manners. End of the show, get back to the parking garage. Drive out just as the person next to me is backing out, hidden behind a concrete wall between us. Just did avoid meeting by accident, and no it was not an Asian woman driver!

Great small auditorium venue for comedy shows, drama and public speaking engagements. You can hear…read morethe stage and see well from pretty much any seating location in the place and it's a good venue as well for family events. Really nice!

Outstanding performance of Two Gentlemen of Verona at Willow Street Frank Bramhall Park , San Jose,…read moreCalifornia. This Shakespeare company has occasional free Shakespeare in the Park events. However, donations are highly appreciated and help extend the number performances and help them cover the costs of the show.

Unfortunately too difficult to hear the words in a brewery atmosphere. Huge fan was running and the…read moreacoustics with a 40 foot ceiling were challenging. It's really too bad. The actors were putting alot of energy into the scenes. Could have been fun

Just saw the show "the next great Gilbert & Sullivan sing off" and it was HILARIOUS. I don't know…read moreanything about opera but I was still able to follow along with the jokes and story line. The performers were absolutely phenomenal and the modern take on opera was awesome. I'm so glad that I got to attend their performance and I totally recommend!!! Such a great thing to see on the weekend!

The Lyric Theater is right in downtown San Jose, on the same block as the Tech museum. I'm certain…read morenobody who goes to the Tech museum in the day and then the Lyric Theater at night, as the audiences are from opposite ends of the age spectrum! We park at Cityview underground parking on Park street, eat at that greasy spoon Peggy Sues to validate our parking, and walk two blocks to the theater. Not sure if it worth the $7 to put up with those overpriced greasy hamburgers. The temperature at 730pm was 80 outside, and probably an AC induced 65 inside, so cold that I, in my shorts and light tennis shirt, felt like I was in a meat locker! If I had know how cold it was, I could have smuggled in my chicken leftovers from dinner instead of pigging out to eat them all. We discretely raid the candy jar closest to the will call desk, and farthest from the ticket seller, on our way past the restrooms. I stop by for a complimentary calendar, until the desk clerk says a $5 donation would be appreciated, causing me to drop the calendar like it was contaminated with Ebola! The wife stops by the restroom, and so do I, as there are always women lines at intermission, and sometimes mens lines, as there are only 2 toilets, and 3 urinals in the mens room -not much for a theater that seats 300. We have season tickets to the Lyric theater, which shows mainly Gilbert and Sullivan opera type live productions. Gilbert and who? It might as well be the stone age for you young Yelpers! And most of the audience seems so old that they may have been born in the age of G & S! We have season tickets at $100 apiece for 3 shows, while you can get Goldstar discounted tickets for around $20 apiece. Season ticket holders like us get the best seats in the house - I like the center section seats on the aisle. 14 rows, 2 aisles, 10 staggered seats across the orchestra section, with 6 seats on each side, and a separate balcony section. You have to rise to let people pass, as the seating is tight - don't step on my passion flower Birkenstock sandals! And the row in front of you is barely lower than yours, so you don't want to be seated behind some guy with a Frank Sinatra hat that I saw! The young couple in front of us move over one seat, due to a very tall man in the aisle seat. After intermission they are gone -another couple who are not sufficiently cultured to appreciate the finer points of G& S opera, like my wife. I don't even bother to read the subtitles over the top of the stage, but doze off between the musical singing scenes. Well wife, at least I don't snore! We were told that this show, Utopia, has not been performed in Northern California this year, and not in the Lyric theater for the past 20 years. And if my reaction is an indication, it will not be performed here for another 20 years! Once I had extra tickets for Mikado, and gave them to the ex-wife and hubby -yes even my ex-wife has a new hubby -probably one of those mail order grooms! Both of them left at intermission -not their cup of tea, as the stuffy British aristocrats would say! Afterwards you get to meet the actors and actresses in the play -there's me being escorted by 2 British redcoat soldiers to the stockade! The Lyric theater management is trying to expand their membership, and running more traditional plays -The Sound of Music is in March, 2015. And my ex-wife loves Sound of Music. I will give them our extra tickets that come with the season subscription -with my wife's permission of course!

The Pear has gone through a lot of change past few years, needless to say COVID was a tough time…read more They have a new artistic Director, the new season looks promising. The 2025 Annual production of Pear Slices (short original plays written by local playwrights) was fantastic. The upcoming season looks really interesting. The theater is just off of 101 / Shoreline, plenty of free parking. Thepear.org

We recently discovered the Pear Theatre when we learned that they were staging a production of…read moreMichael Frayn's "Noises Off", one of the finest and funniest plays that I have ever seen. I was curious how they were going to pull this off, because as originally conceived it's done on a large stage with a rotating set. From what I could gather from the venue, this was a small and cozy theatre and I wasn't sure they would be able to do justice to the original concept. It's not really possible to describe how they accomplished it, but to say that it was clever is a bit of an understatement. The production was fantastic, the acting was on point, and it was actually quite a treat to experience it in an intimate setting as opposed to a cavernous theatre with hundreds of patrons. The theatre is hidden away off Shoreline Blvd. You could drive by it hundreds of times without noticing it, and I'm certain that many of the tech workers nearby have done exactly that. The lobby is small - almost nonexistent, really - but there is a small outdoor seating area where you can enjoy your intermission aperitifs and snacks. The theatre itself is a black box style with seating for maybe 50-75, depending on the configuration of the stage. There are no bad seats. This season's offerings are interesting and varied, and promises to be rather enjoyable. The staff is friendly and accommodating; it's clear that they enjoy their work. We're glad that we discovered this place and will be back again soon.

First time attending Santa Clara First Baptist's annual Bethlehem (Christmas nativity) production,…read morewhich runs 12/11-12/15 from 6:30-9pm. They transform their church parking lot into ancient village of Bethlehem (a lot of sand!) with real actors, animals, activity booths showing life at the time. Free entry and free hot chocolate. We arrived after 8pm so got to check out a few booths and watched the last re-enactment (once every half hour). Overall neat immersive experience, great for families. If parking lot at high school is full, street parking in neighborhood is available.

We used to come here every year until pandemic hit. So good to be back!…read moreCame here on a Friday night and it wasn't too crowded. Love how they make it like you traveled back in time and experience the night when Jesus was born! It's such a great production and it's our favorite family tradition Last day for this year is 12/16 Monday! Highly recommended!

I honestly had no idea this theater even existed, but apparently it's attached to Wilcox high…read moreschool. It comes up really fast on your GPS so be careful when you go through the light but you basically turn right into the parking lot. There was not much parking, considering the show was sold out to see the descendants, so I heard some people had to park farther away in the neighborhood and walk in. Once you walk in, there's an open auditorium theater or open area where you could buy snacks and get candid pictures with the cast. As I walked further down the hallway to my seat, I noticed how lit everything was and organized and clean. Everything was set up. The rose were pretty so I'm glad I'm only 5'2" tall, but a 6 foot tall person would probably have some issues sitting in these chairs. This particular production had an issue with their in the second half of the show, but I was sitting close enough. I could still actually hear them sing without their mics on. I'm not too sure how many people this theater seats, but there were a lot and somebody's told me they were sitting in the back yesterday and that's why they got tickets for today's show. They wanted to sit up close! Lol. Production can't wait to see my niece perform next year as they do Alice in Wonderland!

I attended a musical performance here and the acoustics here are wonderful. The 300+ seats are…read morecomfy and slightly elevated so that everyone can get a look at the stage. There is also room for overflow on each side as well as in the back. They have ample parking as well as street parking available.

Playful People Productions are a welcoming, inclusive organization, managed by a passionate group…read moreof artists. The Productions Playful People show are high quality, fun, and presented with energy and joy. I highly recommend going to see a show with this company at the Historic Hoover Theatre in San Jose.

My 6 year old attended the one week winter camp with Playful Productions in Dec 2023. I am very…read moreglad we signed up. He looked SO happy at drop off and pick up every day!. The teachers were kind, energetic and really bonded well with the kids. The families and kids attending were also fantastic The kids did a variety of activities all day, that included arts, crafts, acting, reading and playing outside. My son was having a hard time adjusting to his elementary school, and this experience was a much needed breath of fresh air for us . At the end of the camp, kids put up a short play which parents could come to see in the theater. All in all it was a positive and fun learning environment for all of us! We can't wait to be back!