James Blackman, South Bay Cities Civic Light Opera

James Blackman is the Executive Director and Producer of the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities.  He was raised in Los Angeles and has had a very eclectic childhood and career.  He lived in poverty as well as at the Doheny Estate Mansion in Beverly Hills in summers (his grandmother was a good friend of actress Marion Davies, a paramour of William Randolph Hearst).

Early in his career, he was an elected county official in Maryland, helped with the Capital Children's Museum in Washington DC, and helped to restore the USS Sequoia Presidential Yacht in the Reagan Administration.  Then he worked for the Blind Children’s Center in Los Angeles, raising $500,000 in 6 months.  He became Managing Director of the California Music Theater at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, and then Associate Producer at Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera.

In 1991, he founded the Civic Light Opera of the South Bay Cities in Redondo Beach, in a converted high school auditorium.  He wanted to have the first company in Los Angeles to use a cast like New York’s Broadway instead of just using TV personalities.  He started with an audience of only 35 people in a 1500 seat auditorium, but in the audience was Sylvie Drake, theater critic of The Los Angeles Times.  She was viewed by some as a “dragon lady”, but she enthusiastically “anointed” the organization and ensured its success.  It won an award that year and the 2 following years, an honor that usually went to New York.

With recently dwindling city financial support and increasing rent in Redondo Beach, he was forced to look around for a more survivable venue.  He recently completed a move from the old Hermosa Beach Playhouse to the newly renovated El Segundo Playhouse.  He has now been invited to join with the Warner Grand Theater in San Pedro, and will have the opening Civic Light Opera event there on Sunday afternoon, May 20.  This is a special time and place in a very beautiful restored classic old theater, in the midst of San Pedro’s ongoing extensive renovation project that is expected to draw many more local and outside visitors.

The Warner Grand has 1510 seats, good free parking, and easier freeway access from the Los Angeles area.  The Civic Light Opera will have its offices at 6th and Pacific, near the theater.  San Pedro is a unique community that he describes as “San Francisco with better weather”.  Mr Blackman is enthusiastic about its future there; he says that people who have supported and bought season tickets to the previous Civic Light Opera will have their tickets validated at its new venue.  (He credits our Club’s President-Elect John Turner as having helped keep the Civic Light Opera alive during its darkest days with a line of credit from his bank.)

For details, schedule and tickets, see http://civiclightopera.com/.