Children’s Musical Theater San Jose

Children’s Musical Theater San Jose offers workshops, full-scale musical productions, and performance opportunities through CMT Mainstage, CMT Marquee, CMT Rising Stars, and CMT Junior Talents shows. The program includes Camp CMT, Camp CMT Morgan Hill, summer camp, winter camp, dance, acting, and vocal classes, as well as master classes, a guest artist series, recital classes, Studio Classes, and Conservatory of Performing Arts classes. Participants also take part in Production Workshops, Audition Master Classes, and attend or perform in Student Matinees and Student Audience Matinees.

• Ages: 4–18 years old
• Schedule: Camp CMT 2026 runs June 8–July 31, with Camp CMT Morgan Hill scheduled July 20–30

Children’s Musical Theater San Jose was founded in 1968 by John P. Healy, Jr., and within a few years changed its name from Cabrini Community Theater to San Jose Children’s Musical Theater. The company later became known as CMT San Jose and is described as the oldest performing arts organization in San Jose and the longest thriving arts organization in Silicon Valley, now celebrating 58 seasons and 58 years of artistic excellence, with 429 productions and 50,000 performers. In a normal year, CMT mounts 11 full-scale musical productions, including 2 Junior Talents productions for cast members ages 7–10, 4 Rising Stars productions for cast members ages 8–14, 3 Mainstage productions for cast members ages 14–20, and 2 Marquee shows that feature top emerging Bay Area performing artists, including many CMT alumni.

CMT San Jose states that it trains and educates youth through musical theater to set and achieve high artistic and personal goals and to inspire them to become exemplary artists, patrons, and citizens of tomorrow, with inclusiveness and quality as central to its vision. The organization states that it remains dedicated to providing musical and theatrical training to children ages 4–20 of all abilities and that it will never turn a child away, regardless of financial or physical limitations. CMT also states that it is committed to serving a culturally diverse region through an equitable lens, promoting systemic change, eliminating bias, and being recognized as a place where young people can be their authentic selves.

CMT describes itself as a nationally acclaimed theater company and notes that it has received multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Arts for artistic excellence, including 12 and 13 NEA grant awards cited in its materials. In 2016, Artistic Director Kevin R. Hauge, who was hired as CMT’s first full-time Artistic Director in 1996, received an honorable mention from the Tony Awards for Excellence in Theater Education. CMT has presented West Coast premieres of Broadway titles including Billy Elliot, Sister Act, American Idiot, Miss Saigon, and Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida, and its 2016 Mainstage production of RENT included an NEA-funded Second Screen Experience.

The organization notes that its Production Workshops use an eight-week preparation process based on a clear artistic vision and the belief that each performer, at every skill level, can accomplish something remarkable. In 1998 and 1999, CMT produced PULSE and 2101 as part of T.A.D.A (Theater as Digital Activity), full-scale musicals written online with terminally ill patients at Children’s Hospital and produced by CMT performers. In 2021, CMT opened its Creative Arts Center, which it describes as a new state-of-the-arts studio space.

CMT states that it prides itself on being a reflection of the community it serves, with an ethnically diverse staff, board of directors, and roster of participants. Its Student Matinees and Student Audience Matinees are described as affordable weekday performances for audiences of young people, many of whom are experiencing live theater for the first time.

Last updated March 21, 2026.