St. John Terrell's Tent Theater Circuit
1956 Lambertville Music Circus playbills separate out staff from Lambertville and the other Circuit tents. According to the 1956 "Annie Get Your Gun" playbill there were three staffs: Central Company Staff for Lambertville, one for the Neptune Music Circus and one for the Camden County Music Circus.
The four theaters Mr. Terrell established and operated were:
The four theaters Mr. Terrell established and operated were:- Brandywine Music Circus (Concordville, PA)
Its first season was 1956. - Camden County Music Circus (Haddonfield, NJ)
Its first season was 1956 - Neptune Music Circus (Asbury Park, NJ)
Its first season was 1952 - Miami Music Circus (Miami Beach, FL)
Its first season was 1951
Miami Beach Music Circus
Their Music Circus was located at Treasure Island on the 79th St. Causeway, North Bay Village, Miami Beach, FL. Mr. Terrell and Lawrence Schwab were co-producers.
Its 1951 Season opened January 14th. In ten weeks that year and twelve the winter of 1950-1951, the Miami Music Circus played to 130,000 people.
General Partner
General Partner
Limited Partner
Limited Partner
Miami Beach Music Circus 1953 Season
Scheduled Shows
"Kiss Me, Kate" 1953
"Carousel" 1953
"Roberta" 1953
"The Student Prince" 1953
"High Button Shoes" 1953
"Blossom Time" 1953
"Die Fledermaus" 1953
"Naughty Marietta" 1953
"The New Moom" 1953
"Show Boat" 1953
Terrell's Two Treasure Island Music Circuses - Miami and St. Petersburg
One of Terrell's business partners was producer Robert Aldrich, husband of British stage star Gertrude Lawrence. She and Aldrich were part owners of a Terrell tent stage in Hyannis, MA.
At the same time, in January, 1951, St. Petersburg, FL got another canvas, big top-style tent in a vacant lot, with a 43-foot ceiling and 1,400 hard wooden chairs set on staggered platforms directed at the circular stage, at ground level in the center of the tent. It was called the St. Petersburg Operetta and located at 4th Street and 94th Avenue North, 14 miles northeast of Terrell's location. It opened with "The Merry Widow" on January 15, 1951
That venture's P.T. Barnum-like central character was Pennsylvanian public relations man, short story writer, and wannabe impresario Pat Hurley, who convinced four Philadelphia businessmen to invest $50,000 each to fund the St. Petersburg Operetta.
Located at the intersection of Gulf Boulevard and the Treasure Island Causeway, Terrell's Treasure Island Music Circus debuted Jan. 9, 1951 with "Song of Norway." Then came a week of "No, No Nanette" with Elaine Stritch (who had starred in the show in Lambertville just 6 months earlier), and finally a week of "Carousel." Then Terrell pulled the plug and high-tailed it back to his Miami Treasure Island Music Circus to concentrate on that. Terrell's St. Petersburg Treasure Island Music Circus closed on January 28, 1951.
In a sour grapes interview, manager Arthur Gerold told the St. Petersburg Times, "This is just not the place for us. Our productions are very high class and expensive... if we lowered the quality, it would not be the Music Circus. Your town does not seem to be able to afford this type of entertainment, judging from our audiences, and it would not pay us to continue."
On April 2, 1951 the St. Petersburg Operetta tent blew over, so they moved the last of their season to St. Petersburg High School auditorium. Mr. Hurley then brokered a deal with the owners of Gay Blades Roller Rink, 2191 9th Avenue North, to house the next five Operetta seasons there. But 1953 turned out to be its last season and it closed.