A 90 Year History

The Beloit Civic Theatre has been presenting Broadway’s best to audiences from the stateline area for many decades.

Pillars of Beloit Civic Theatre in the 1960’s and 1970’s
Back row: Louis Poliere, Elizabeth Reinholz, Harold Eichman
Front row: Marie Bassett, Helen Teed

Founded as the Beloit Little Theatre Guild back in 1932, its history is one to be envied by any community group. The cast of the first public production reads like a “Who’s Who of Beloit”. Profits from that first successful season were donated to the Municipal Hospital for X-ray work. By the next year, Beloit and the surrounding area had taken the Theatre Guild to their hearts. A membership of 1300 made it the largest community theater in the state of Wisconsin.

In 1948 the name of the Guild was changed to the current Beloit Civic Theatre. Early shows were performed in various locations, including at the old Scoville Hall on the Beloit College campus. Productions also rotated between the Roosevelt and Lincoln Junior High School auditoriums. In 1952, when the current high school was built, BCT was incorporated as a non-profit organization and moved to our current performing space.

In the early years, BCT had to limit admission to only season members since there were usually only two performances of a play. Curtain time was typically 8:15 pm on a Tuesday and Wednesday night. Membership dropped when movies became more prevalent and popular, and then again when television entered the entertainment arena. But, as Stephen Sondheim would say, “We’re still here!”

We have recently completed the organization of our archives. We have sorted through boxes of old programs, scrapbooks and photos and have compiled a list of all the Beloit Civic Theatre productions since we were founded in 1932! Click on the link below to download a copy of our list of productions. For many of the shows listed we have an original playbill in the office files. We have also framed and hung many of the duplicates on the walls in our office.