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The first residents of Cheyenne, Wyoming began arriving in the mid-1800s. Back then; the town was populated primarily by men, who had moved west to work on the Union Pacific Railroad. While most of them left after the railroad was completed, many stayed, eventually establishing a lively Wild West frontier town that boasted a larger number of saloons and about five theaters, most of which presented burlesque. As time went on, the new railroad delivered enough culture-in the forms of books, magazines, and popular entertainment-to inspire its citizens to build an opera house in 1882.
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Today, Cheyenne is a bustling city of about 54,000 and serves as the capital of Wyoming. While it isn't nearly as rough and tumble as it was in the 19th century, entertainment is still one of its biggest priorities. Much of that entertainment is provided by the Cheyenne Civic Center, which will host its 25th anniversary season this year. Built in 1981, the downtown center is operated by the City of Cheyenne and seats about 1,500 (with 584 orchestra-level seats, 478 loge seats and 434 balcony seats). |
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Over the years, the Center has played host to the best of the best in the entertainment industry. Past Sold Out Shows include the Beach Boys, B.B. King, David Copperfield, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Alison Krauss, Wayne Newton, Natalie Cole, Victor Borge, the Smothers Brothers and Anne Murray, as well as touring shows such as Lord of the Dance, A Chorus Line, Cats, Grease, Sesame Street, and the Bolshoi Ballet!
"The Civic Center is able to lure some of the great entertainers because of its close proximity to the crossroads of Interstate 80 (I-80) and Interstate 25 (I-25)," says Dru Rohla, the Cheyenne Civic Center’s executive director. “I brought LeAnn Rimes out when she was 16, when ‘Blue’ was the number-one song and album in the country,” he notes. Rohla is currently trying to book another newcomer to the national music scene-Clay Aiken-for a Christmas performance.
During the past 25 years, the Civic Center has undergone its fair share of renovations “We’ve replaced the carpet, the lighting instruments and the sound board over the last five years,” Rohla says, “I just purchased 66 new musicians’ chairs for $15,000 from Wenger for the symphony. The chairs we had been using were 25 years old.” In the next decade, Rohla hopes to have the stage curtains and theater seats replaced as well. The “settlement room,” where the staff settles up with the promoters after a show, will also undergo changes, as will the box office.
And while the Civic Center meets current American Disability Association (ADA) guidelines for public access, seating for wheelchairs is limited in the auditorium’s main floor behind the orchestra and in front of the loge seating. The room for rehearsal also has limited disability access. Within the next 10 years, Rohla says he wants to increase the ADA access to the Cheyenne Civic Center.
Because the Civic Center is city-owned and operated, it also hosts many local organizations, including the Cheyenne Kiwanis Club, the All-City Children’s Choir, Laramie County Community College and "is home to the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra."
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