History

Enjoy the memories of the fabulous performers who have participated in our productions over the years!

Honoring Grossman & Brown and Sally & Charlie Stowe
MBCC Theater was born from friendship, imagination, and a shared conviction that performance could be part of the life of a church. In the early 1950s, Glenn Grossman and Adrian “Ade” Brown met through MBCC and the young marrieds group known as the Mariners. Along with their wives, Helen and Eileen, they found common ground not only in church life, but in a spirit of creativity and ambition. All four had roots in Cleveland, Ohio, before making their way to California, and Glenn and Adrian in particular brought with them a remarkable blend of artistic instinct and professional skill. Glenn worked in advertising, but was also a pianist, trumpet player, composer, and natural conductor. Adrian, also in advertising, worked as a copywriter and producer, part of a generation of “creative” minds who moved fluidly between ad work, television, music, and theater.

Rather than simply admire theater from afar, Glenn and Ade decided to build it themselves. Working through the Mariners, they began staging shows with church members serving as actors, musicians, dancers, and stagehands. In those earliest years, everyone had a role to play. Early productions such as Out of the Trunk, How High the Fi, International Geophysical Year, Delegate Applegate, and Cinnamon Buns were staged in the Community Hall through about 1960, laying the groundwork for what would become a lasting and beloved theatrical tradition at MBCC.

As the productions grew in ambition and popularity, Glenn and others helped guide the Mariners and the church into licensing Broadway musicals, expanding the theater program into a new era. Productions such as The Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying drew such strong interest that the company outgrew its original space and moved performances first to Leuzinger High School and later to El Camino College. Even as life changed and the original founders’ circumstances shifted, the model they created endured: a church-based theater program that was serious about craft, open to talent, and energized by community participation.

Adrian Brown’s own artistic presence remained part of that story. He appeared in one more Mariner show in 1974, playing the lead in The Man Who Came to Dinner. Glenn later wrote an original musical for the Mariners, Never Say Goodbye, as a tribute to Ade after his death in 1976 at the age of 50. That gesture speaks to the depth of their friendship and to the personal devotion that helped build this theater from the ground up. What Grossman and Brown created was not simply a program, but a culture: one in which artistry, fellowship, humor, discipline, and generosity all had a place.

Through the 1960s and well into the 2010s, that foundation was carried forward and expanded by the extraordinary musical leadership of Charlie and Sally Stowe. They helped shape MBCC Theater into a true musical powerhouse, cultivating orchestras, actors, singers, artisans, and production talent across generations. Under their influence, shows such as The Music Man, The Pajama Game, I Do! I Do!, State Fair, and Mame! became more than productions; they became training grounds for artists and gathering places for the community. Charlie and Sally created opportunities for curious and emerging theater-makers to direct, perform, design, play, build, and learn. Their legacy lives not only in the shows they helped mount, but in the many people whose creative lives were formed by their encouragement and standards of excellence.

Today, MBCC Theater continues in gratitude for all who built it. From Grossman and Brown’s first courageous efforts in the Community Hall, to the Stowes’ decades of musical leadership and mentorship, the story of this theater is one of vision passed from generation to generation. Every rehearsal, every performance, and every opening night carries forward that legacy — a tradition of community theater rooted in creativity, hospitality, and the belief that the arts belong at the heart of a vibrant church community.