Since 1937 the Civic Center Music Hall has held Oklahoma City's stages and halls. Built in 1937 as Municipal Auditorium and renamed in 1966, this performing arts center holds a cluster of stages and halls: the Thelma Gaylord Performing Arts Theatre, the Freede Little Theatre, CitySpace, the Meinders Hall of Mirrors and the Joel Levine Rehearsal Hall. It is managed and operated in conjunction with the Rose State Performing Arts Theatre; together they serve more than 300,000 patrons at around 250 performances on four different stages each year.
The hall is home to seven professional arts organizations: Canterbury Voices, OKC Broadway, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Ballet, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Oklahoma City Rep and Painted Sky Opera. Step back in time with me: the land here was purchased in 1927 after voters approved a $4 million bond, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs in the 1930s contributed 55 percent of the cost through the Public Works Administration. J. O. Parr began planning and designing the Municipal Auditorium in that era.
Picture seven resident companies filling this hall's four stages for two hundred fifty performances a year.