(bright music) - [Announcer] MurphyAustin Adams Schoenfeld, LLP, focusing on business law and commercial litigation, is proud to support Rob on the Road Region Rising.

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- Coming up next on Rob at Home Region Rising.

Ty Smith, the new historian for the city of Sacramento joins us on his role and what history means to today.

Plus, Broadway Sacramento, 75 years of theater magic.

The author of this book, Margaret Kane, joins us as well.

- [Narrator] And now, Rob on the Road, exploring Northern California.

- I'm thrilled to have Ty Smith join us now on Rob at Home Region Rising.

And Ty, what a great new chapter for you as the official historian for the city of Sacramento.

That's awesome.

- I know, I'm still moving in.

Still loading my books on the shelves and getting ready, but it is just an honor and really a privilege to serve as Sacramento's official city historian.

- When I first saw that you had this new position, I thought that makes perfect sense.

Because when we interviewed you also on Rob on the Road for the Sacramento Locomotive Works, you had so much information about Sacramento in general and about the living history.

What is your goal as historian?

- Yeah.

Well you know, there's stuff that's already baked in, like being the director of the Center for Sacramento History, managing the official archives for the city and the county of Sacramento.

All of the official records, documents, probate cases, case law, all that stuff is here, right here in Sacramento.

And I preside over that.

The other thing though is a more civic role, I think, within the city.

History has a lot to tell us about the present and a little bit about the future too.

And so my personal goal is to be just more engaged.

There's all kinds of people doing history, all kinds of institutions within the city doing history, and I want to be the convener of all of that and empower all of that, from big history organizations that we think of and some small community-minded ones that we maybe don't think of, but should.

- That's a lot of work for, and I know you have a team, but for one person to lead.

How does that feel on your shoulders?

You know, Sacramento has such a rich, long history, and now you are the keeper of that.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it does weigh on me in a certain kind of way, but in a good way.

You know, I understand how important that is to tell history truthfully, to delve into all of the aspects of our past and to do that.

So I feel empowered by that.

I feel incredibly fortunate that leadership in the city matched my vision for what a publicly engaged city historian would do.

And I feel like we have a real opportunity to enliven and inform through a discussion of our shared past.

So I'm just really excited.

Now, it is a lot of work, as you suggest, but throughout my career, you know, if there's a through line, it's about connecting people and being a connector, getting people around the table.

And so I don't have to do it alone.

I got good people who work with me here, my colleagues, but then all the people out in the city, we're all trying to do the same thing.

So just connecting.

And I know if we go together, we go much further.

- So I can't help but ask you about some of the favorite gems, if you will, of Sacramento history that you think are not talked about enough.

What are some things that come to mind?

- Yeah, I've said this before.

I think it's become my unofficial sort of tagline, and that is in Sacramento, our local history is world history.

And when I say that, people think, oh, Gold Rush or the Transcontinental Railroad.

Sure, yeah, we got to talk about those.

But beyond that, Civil Rights innovations that came specifically out of the Sacramento experience, thinking of Nathaniel Colley, but not just Colley, but the people around Colley, the Virna Cansons, the community networks that empowered that kind of movement.

So when I think of Civil Rights, I think of Sacramento.

I think of the fight for fair housing.

I think of anti-discrimination law.

And it's not that I want to take away anything from a narrative that talks about Civil Rights emanating from the South in the fight against Jim Crow, because that's important too.

But in that conversation about Civil Rights, along with people like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

and places like Selma and places like Birmingham, we also need to add Sacramento and Nathaniel Colley and the work of the NAACP.

So we have the Colley collection right here, and I pass by it four or five or six times a day, and I can't wait to just delve further into that because that is a story that is worth telling.

- Can you and I do that together as a show?

- Oh, yes, let's do, yes.

- That would be phenomenal.

- Yeah, it really is an important story.

It's not that, I mean, people have told it.

There's wonderful documentaries that came out of the center.

- Tell it, tell it really quickly.

- Before I got here.

But Nathaniel Colley engaging, looking around at California evolving after tWorld War II, he comes to Sacramento.

He's a trained lawyer, top of his class, or nearly so, and he can't find a job working in any law firm in Sacramento.

And so he spends the first part of his time in Sacramento stacking textbooks and packing textbooks, and he decides to open his own firm.

And he's looking around at the world around him, and what he sees is discrimination in public housing.

He's seeing the suburban expansion of the city, but denied, you know, to people of color.

And he decides to devote his law firm to remedying those issues.

And in doing that, he establishes through the Supreme Court precedent that it has an international impact to a certain degree.

And that's a Sacramento story.

So we got stories like that.

We have stories of Russ Solomon selling used records in the corner of his dad's drugstore and turning that into a global icon as an expression really of the Sacramento experience.

That's a Sacramento export that turns into an international story.

And all kinds of things in between.

So really, Sacramento has a lot to say to the world.

- We did the last interview with Russ Solomon while he was alive on camera, and I treasure that time with him.

What a legend.

And you also talked about Dr.

King.

He was in Sacramento not long before he was assassinated.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Sacramento both as the state's capital, but just as a unique community is just at the heart of so much history in ways that we don't explore or talk about as much as we should.

So, you know, I get to be that that voice who gets to include, you know, that information and even as you did just there, you know, adding that context, that bigger context that helps inform the present and shape our future.

- Yeah, so much comes from conversation.

We must have the conversations and what we ask really does matter.

And I want to ask you, you now as the keeper of Sacramento's history, what do you want to say as the historian to make people pay attention to history as it's actually being made these days?

- I started a column in our newsletter and it's called History Happening.

I'm a historian, I'm a trained public historian.

I teach at the university.

Really do shape my identity around that.

But for a historian, I spend an awful lot of time thinking about the future.

And I do that because I understand history gives us a kind of clarity and meaning, especially when the past seems uncertain, especially when it seems like we're in an era of disconnection or uncertainty.

All we have is the past in a certain kind of way.

And I think history can empower people.

It can connect people.

If we tell it just as it was, then it has that capacity to lend clarity and meaning as we navigate the uncertainties of the present and the future.

So when I talk about history, I think about it through the lens of almost a genealogy of the present.

It's a jumping off point.

What's next, how do we learn from?

How do we evolve?

How do we pick up old ideas and carry them forward?

It's very much connected to the present and the future rather than being stuck in the past.

So bringing this stuff out of the archives and out into the world as a usable past really sits at the center of what I want to do.

- And history, which based on what you just said and what I heard you say is that history is as alive as we make it.

- That's right, absolutely.

- I mean, as much as we go to it for where we are today.

- Absolutely, we don't always want to hear, you know, listen to what it has to tell us.

You know, that's the other thing.

And there is a danger, I think, in cherry-picking through the past and taking things.

I don't suggest that the kind of history that empowers us is that we have to understand it for just as it was, and we have to understand people on their own terms and how they live their lives.

But if we listen-- - Cherry picking from any history is dangerous.

From any area, period, is dangerous.

Cherry-picking from anything at all is dangerous.

You have to take it that's what it is.

- We encounter it warts and all, right?

And we put it out on the table and then we listen to what it has to say to us.

And that's an active process.

You know, that's going into the archive and taking something out.

But that can't be the end of it alone.

It is that empowerment aspect.

It is that context aspect that I think anchors people to something.

- Yeah, it would be like judging someone just for their trophies and not their scars.

- Yeah.

- You have to take the whole and the in between.

- That's right.

- So anything that you've uncovered in Sacramento history since you've started this new job that you're dying to talk about?

- Well, I've been in Sacramento.

I've lived here three times in my life, and I'm really close proximity, you know, to where I sat for 10 years in the center of Old Sacramento.

- Yeah, you are very close to that.

- Yeah, so, you know, I'm an insider-outsider in that respect.

What I've wanted to do, and I think I've taken this approach every time I've taken new leadership positions, is I want to listen and I want to learn from people.

There are wonderful people who've been at this institution.

And I want to understand their perspectives and I want to sink into it.

I don't, other than doing more, more in the world, I don't have the big agenda.

You know, I listen and learn.

I want to solve problems.

I want to be involved in the community.

And so I'm in that phase, I've been in this office for just over a month.

And to be honest with you, I haven't spent a lot of time in the office.

I've been out talking to people.

I've been out networking with folks.

You know, and I've hit the ground running.

So it's a wonderful thing.

I like that that, that sense of action and being involved.

- Ty Smith, what a pleasure to always speak with you.

And now in this new role as the official historian for the city of Sacramento, congratulations.

- Thank you.

- On your new job and your new chapter in history as well.

- I'm so pleased to do it and so pleased to continue our connection and our shared exploration.

- Me too, thanks.

- You're welcome.

(bright music) - And now the new book, Broadway Sacramento, 75 Years in the Making.

Joining me now is Margaret Kane.

And Margaret, what a great job on this phenomenal book.

I mean, I'm telling you something.

Once I got my hands on it, I could not put it down.

- That's very kind of you, Rob.

It's funny, I knew I was on the right track when a friend of mine who's a pretty successful author, but knows nothing about theater.

She volunteered to read the manuscript early on.

And she said to me after she'd read it, she said, you didn't tell me you were writing a page-turner.

And so I knew from that that, you know, I was on the right track.

So I felt good about that.

- It is such a walkthrough.

It's a great big tent to play on your words and play on reality of what it started as with Music Circus.

But it is such a big tent look that really takes you inside of that tent.

And you get to watch the happenings and the creation of such a staple of not just Sacramento, but of this country.

- Right.

That's a key point.

- People talk about this all over the country coming to Sacramento at Music Circus.

It's different than anywhere else in the country.

- That's exactly right.

And I think it never ceases to amaze me about how many Sacramentans do not know that we have one of the nation's top regional theaters right here in our backyard.

And I think there's a subhead in the book where I refer to that as a great theater hiding in plain sight.

And I do think that's exactly what has happened here.

And part of that is because it was originally a tent.

It was originally summer stock where it was quick in, quick out, every week, a new production.

They had three things they might be working on at any point in time.

The ensemble was the same group of people for the entire summer.

And through the years, as you will have discovered having read the book, the company evolved to be so much more.

The company evolved to be a Broadway house, essentially, in our own backyard.

And that is something that's not fully appreciated, I think.

People tend to think, oh, it's the touring productions that are really Broadway caliber.

And that's just not true at all.

We get probably even finer talent to work in the Music Circus Pavilion, now throughout the year since we have access to that space throughout the year.

And that's just something that's not known.

And then, and it's not just the talent, it's the production values as well.

It's the whole kit and caboodle, so to speak.

- I want to ask you, I really want to ask you what some of the favorite discoveries are that you found while researching this.

And, you know, you took a lot of effort and personal time to do this.

But first of all, what are some of the things that you discovered along the way that just blew your mind?

- Tough question, Rob.

I think the origins of the company are not well understood.

Russell Lewis and Howard Young were Broadway producers who were doing successful Broadway work in the '40s and '50s.

And really the '40s.

And they were approached by Eleanor McClatchy, who was the publisher of McClatchy Newspapers and was here in Sacramento at the helm of the Sacramento Bee.

And she was a theater buff par excellence.

She'd actually studied writing dramas at Columbia, and then she was called back to head up the company when her father essentially passed away.

So she recruited them.

She offered some financial support for the initial five years.

And they were really interested in exploring this concept of tune tents, theater in the round under a tent.

And in the '50s, there were about 400 of these nationwide.

And then it dwindled down, it's about three are surviving literally from that 400.

So I guess I hadn't fully appreciated the talents that both Lewis and Young had and how fortunate we were to have someone like Eleanor be willing to recruit them.

And they were looking at other markets.

They were looking at Denver, they were looking at Southern California.

So we were very fortunate to get them.

So that's one thing, I think.

I think I'm also, even though I've been involved with the organization, as you know, as a past chair, I'm constantly amazed-- - The board of directors.

Absolutely.

- Yes.

I'm constantly amazed at the quality of the talent that we get.

People who are really have done a lot of Broadway work want to come here and perform because the company treats them so well.

And that's been a historical part of what distinguishes this company from the very beginning.

The notion that if you treat people well, they will want to give you their best.

And I think I loved how that's, I think, one of the through lines of the book that comes through, just how much this is one of the nation's most coveted places to work.

So I wouldn't say that was exactly a surprise, but nonetheless, very compelling.

- A joy to share for certain.

- Yes.

And so I like to shine the light on all of those things.

I think I also didn't really understand, and I might still not understand how complex it is to do theater in the round and the quality of the production values, what investment the company has made in the physical infrastructure and the technology in this space.

I think that's, again, something maybe there wasn't a complete surprise, but going into the detail of it for the book was, I think, very impressive.

- And when you talk to performers who perform in the round, they will tell you what a challenge, but what an opportunity it is.

You get to be this close, this close.

- I was at one of the performances of Young Frankenstein on Saturday night, and it was actually the third time seeing the show.

It's that good.

And I was right on the aisle, right on one of the performance aisles, and literally the wedge that comes in where they start the scene was about six inches away from me.

And one of the things that the cast does say is people are right there in it with you.

In the round, you are in it with the audience.

And the audience can look across and sees the audience.

You see people laughing, which is very different from a proscenium theater where people are, you know, just along you, behind you, and you just don't get that same immersive experience that you do in the round.

So I have become an absolute fanatic for the round.

It's gonna be very rare that I'll see something in a proscenium environment that I think is better than in the round.

- Hey, that's coming from a big source.

- Well, I think if it's done well and there's enough scenery and the use of lighting is well done and the entrances from the aisles are well done and the pacing is right, there's nothing better than theater in the round.

And we have, as, you know, you've pointed out, one of the finest here in Sacramento.

- Yes, and that is attributed, my words on that, to many, many, many performers who say that, when they get here and when they leave.

So that's just as important to say that's what they say when they leave.

I want to also ask you that as I was going through this book, how in the world did you find so many images and have so many done at such high quality?

Because many of these archives did not exist.

- So that's an astute question, and there is an answer to it.

Fairly early on, someone introduced me to a gentleman named Alan Almeida.

And he has worked as a theater professional for a long time.

And he has the ability to restore photos and drawings, illustrations.

And so he volunteered his time to help me with that process.

I think it brings a lot of color to the book, so to speak, and just in terms of the texture and the feeling and of going back to the '50s when some of those things were drawn.

So I love that.

And then of course, I had to get all of the permissions for all the photos.

- I know, I was thinking that as you were talking.

Oh my goodness, all the permissions and the courtesies and the credits.

You're an attorney also, so you know.

- Well, I've never done anything like that before.

So that was, let's just say, that was a stretch.

Broadway Sacramento let me use all of their images that they had.

The reality is they didn't have much beyond the digital era.

So there were a few things.

There were a few big important photographs I felt that they did have in their files that I was able to use.

The photos from Chess, which are from 1990 and 1992.

- Oh, great production though.

- There's a beautiful photograph of Jennifer Lee Warren who starred in Oklahoma.

And she really was responsible.

She and other casting choices, let's just say, were responsible for the company being the first musical theater company and the first theater west of the Mississippi to be awarded the Loretta Lenoir Award from Actors Equity for Diversity in Casting.

It was a big deal in the late '90s to get that award, if you can believe it, for we're one of the first theaters in the country to really focus on diversity in our casting process.

- Fantastic.

- It is.

It's a big deal.

It's testimony to the quality of the work.

And when I went back to New York to interview Leland Ball, who was the CEO at the time, I mean, he basically said, you know, our desire was always just to cast the best people in every role.

And that continues today, obviously, but to be taking that stance back then is a big deal.

- I love that.

How much has this experience changed you?

And what has it meant to you?

- Well, I think for me.

So let's start with what it has meant for me.

As I think you know, I have a PhD in Sanskrit.

I have written a lot of long-form things for my work.

I have worked as a management consultant at a pretty senior level in the banking space for quite a few decades now.

And so for me to be able to take my skills as an academic with my love for theater and put something like this together has been very impactful for me, to just have that capability to do that, to give that back to the community, to document this, this incredible institution.

So, you know, that's been great.

I think for the most part, I just used skills I knew I had, I guess basically is the best way of putting that.

I had confidence that I could do it.

I kind of knew that if I just stuck with it and was persistent, that the story actually would reveal itself over time.

There were long periods of time when I thought, oh, I don't know that I can really do this.

I'm not really gonna be good enough to do it.

And, you know, I was just persistent.

So I think it's not that I learned that.

I knew I had that, but to use the discipline to apply that consistently throughout a process, I think is a different thing.

I also feel that I'm incredibly happy with the response I've received.

It's been extremely positive across the board.

I mean, some people are just grateful I wrote the book so that they could read it and so that they could learn about it.

I mean, even Richard Lewis, whom you know and worked with, and he was with the company for over 50 years.

It's his father who started it.

He said, Margaret, you found things I did not know.

And so really being able to bring some of these things to life that people were not aware of, I'm very happy about that.

So I don't think it really has changed me, but it's given me just an appreciation for maybe the art of the possible, you know?

And the importance of giving back.

I love the company, and for me to be able to do something long-lasting that will preserve its history forever feels great.

- Thank you, Margaret.

You're an amazing person and amazing writer too.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

I appreciate you joining us here.

- Thank you very much.

- Thanks so much for joining us on Rob at Home Region Rising.

We will see you next time right here.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] MurphyAustin Adams Schoenfeld, LLP, focusing on business law and commercial litigation, is proud to support Rob on the Road Region Rising.

More information available at murphyaustin.com.