We’ve built the foundation at 3Below Theaters with our series of stage, screen, and education programming for all ages and interests. Now we invite you to come inside to make this house a home. Now’s the time to believe in 3Below to keep this gem of downtown arts entertainment alive and thriving!

Theatre In This Moment
Theatre in this moment, now more than ever, has to be an event. There has to be a reason that people want to leave their streaming to come to the theater. We produce these major musicals in this tiny theater for you; they become events that are unmissable.

Why Is Funding Important?
Theatre is essential throughout one’s life for developing empathy, broadening understanding, and heightening awareness of the communal nature of our existence. Our programs are a critical component in creating these meaningful artistic connections among seniors, adults, teens, and children. 

The rich relationships among our creative teams, our staff, and the community we serve are at the very essence of 3Below. We strive to connect the community to our work and our work to the community, through programs that foster civic dialogue, fuel intellectual curiosity, and welcome new audiences to the theater.

3Below depends on the support and generosity of our funders to keep our doors open and sustain us as a vital community resource. Your funding will help bring diverse and exceptional events to the screen and on stage. 

Become an investor today and help enrich lives, inspire minds, and celebrate our community’s diverse perspectives.

The Pandemic
Across the country theaters are suffering. Many have announced a pause in new productions and laid off the majority of its staff. Some theaters have simply closed for good. Each struggles with reduced contributions and severely depressed ticket sales. While many arts agencies have rebounded, the worry is that theater audiences have changed their behavior, now seeming to prefer streaming nightly entertainment from the couch. These are truly uncharted waters.

As the pandemic took hold, 3Below never let our bond with you break. We took over the roof at the top of the garage above the theater, built a stage and was among the first theaters in the nation to invite back audiences. People weeped on the roof because they had somewhere to be. They didn’t want to miss out – they wanted to once again be part of a community. During the shutdown we asked how do we stay relevant once we reopen? The answer has become clear. It’s going to take a lot of creativity, a lot of risk, and a commitment from our 3Below family to attend, participate, and support.

It is through our Investors that we will find the roadmap toward success as we struggle to reconnect with lagging endemic audiences. Embracing digital ways to connect with our audiences, hosting events on the roof, rethinking 3Below’s traditional calendar and re-configuring the theaters themselves have helped. We look to you to bring single tickets and group tickets back to pre-pandemic numbers and increase even more.

Our survival is very important to local businesses. Restaurants and hotels look to us to be open as we bring over 100,000 people downtown every year. 

Our Secret Sauce
If there is a secret sauce for 3Below’s success, we may have it. Everyone who enters 3Below is met and welcomed by 3Below Ambassadors. It’s a simple touch but a telling one for the downtown theater that has forged a very human connection with its community. 3Below is not just a theater; it’s your theater.

Punching up the social components of going to the theater is helpful because that’s the major advantage theater has over streaming. 3Below intends to make itself a draw no matter what’s on stage. The venue is so creative with surprises around every corner, 10,000-square-feet combining three theaters, a bar and café and community events. We are custodians of a public asset, not guardians. We are not the gatekeepers. We’re the ones holding the doors open.

The Community
Theaters have to find a way for the community to care deeply about them. That means finding the means to be welcoming, whether it’s an open door or an arm outstretched. This is not a world of “if you build it, they will come?” This is a world of constant renewed innovation and invitation, a willingness to pivot, and a sense of gratitude that extends in both directions.

Sustainability
You Belong at 3Below: Your investment will help to provide a secure financial footing upon which we can continue to generate and present thoughtful, moving and engaging theatre on all of our stages for all ages. Your membership helps sustain 3Below and allows us to differentiate ourselves through moving direction, brilliant design and remarkable singing and acting. Every member of 3Below — on the stage, in the audience, behind the curtain and beyond — feels a personal connection to your support. It’s what allows us to take risks and bring wondrous, joyful, heartbreaking and fascinating worlds to life. It is also an investment in our future, supporting play development and training programs for the theatre professionals of tomorrow.

INVESTMENT IS MORE
Now more than ever, our INVESTORS are an essential part of the 3Below family — it is investing in every aspect of 3Below’s future. Take a look at just a few of the programs and efforts that  directly impact 3BELOW, and consider INVESTING today. The amazing art we create together is just the beginning. 

Guggenheim Entertainment is dedicated in its mission to inspire, stimulate, and entertain diverse audiences in the greater San Jose community by producing musicals and theatre education programs of the highest professional standards. 3Below strives to be a premier American regional theatre that is welcoming, diverse, distinctive, bold, thrilling, and essential to our community.

Artistry
As the flagship professional musical theatre of San Jose, our primary purpose is to create consistently high-quality and entertaining productions worthy of a premier American regional theatre. We are driven by excellence and lead the region with a diverse repertoire. Collaboration is our methodology, as we seize opportunities to work with top-flight artists and organizations. Building upon a legacy of leadership in American theatre, Guggenheim Entertainment produces world-class performances and cultivates new works for the stage and for future generations.

Community
3Below acts as an indispensable resource for our San Jose community. We believe that a theatre should seek to reflect and connect with the community that it serves, both through its programming and its people. We are outward-looking, continually seeking to create and deepen relationships with current and future audiences, collaborate with local organizations, and partner with educational institutions. 

Our institutional strength is rooted in embracing diversity in our programming, staffing, governance, and among those we serve. Guggenheim Entertainment is committed to an expansive definition of diversity that encompasses ability, race, gender, faith, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and varying points of view. Our purpose is to produce musicals and education programs that are meaningful in the context of our community, and to do so in a manner that is welcoming to all who choose to participate.

Lifelong Learning
Since 1986, Chief Executive Officer Scott Evan Guggenheim has been at the forefront of Theatre In Education, having won an Antoinette Perry Award (giver of the coveted Tony Award) for Excellence in Theatre in Education. Under Scott’s direction, Guggenheim Entertainment offers The Schoolhouse, a training ground for youth, teens, adults, and seniors to develop and hone skills in the theatrical arts.

We value theatre as essential throughout one’s life for developing empathy, broadening understanding, and heightening awareness of the communal nature of our existence. Our educational programming is a critical component in creating meaningful artistic connections among children, teens, adults, and seniors. 

Guggenheim Entertainment recognizes that rich relationships among artists, staff members, and the community are the very essence of a premier American regional theatre. As such, Guggenheim Entertainment strives to connect the community with its work, and its work with the community, through programs that foster civic dialogue, fuel intellectual curiosity, and welcome new audiences to the theatre.

Our talented and experienced staff works 24/7 to customize events just for you and your family and friends. We invite you to join us on our mission to make the world a better place by promoting joy through theatre and entertainment. Contact us to let us know how you’d like to get involved.

Guggenheim Entertainment
Since 1986 Guggenheim Entertainment has operated many programs as part of the non-profit side of their company. In 2021, after a long hiatus thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, Guggenheim Entertainment rebranded the live theatrical division of their company as San Jose Playhouse. Based at 3Below Theaters in Downtown San Jose, this non-profit organization serves as home to professional musical theater, theater for young audiences, creative and performing arts classes, and community engagement programs. 

Programming is designed and implemented by a small but mighty group of producers, designers, actors, and lovers of the creative and performing arts dedicated to providing quality, accessible, diverse, and entirely enjoyable entertainment events and experiences for audiences and students of all ages. 

3Below Theaters and Cafe
Prior to the pandemic, the team behind Guggenheim Entertainment lovingly renovated 3Below Theaters & Cafe. Leveraging over three decades of success as a theatrical production company, the team renovated, rebranded, and revitalized what was Camera 3 Cinemas in Downtown San Jose. By taking the reins to lead the redevelopment in September of 2017, Guggenheim Entertainment was able to reopen the venue as 3Below Theaters in January 2018 thus integrating GE’s programs and those of Camera Cinemas, Cinequest, ComedySportz, and what is now known as San Jose Playhouse, Clubhouse, and Arthouse.

Our History
For more than three decades, the producers and artists of Guggenheim Entertainment have produced events and entertainment for corporate, government, and non-profit clients throughout the state of California. They have produced thousands of high-quality live theatrical and cinema events and productions and have operated 8 theaters wherein they partnered with City and Corporate Institutions. 

It all began with the Young Conservatory Theatre of San Jose which led to Children’s Theater Workshop – later known as California Theatre Wing – in the San Francisco East Bay throughout the ’80s and ’90s. In 1997, Guggenheim Entertainment brought “Schoolhouse Rock Live!” to San Francisco’s Union Square where a successful run of the show delighted audiences for six months; an achievement for Bay Area theatre. In late 1997, the Guggenheims moved the production to San Jose. After swiftly renovating what was formerly the Oasis Nightclub near St. James park, “Schoolhouse Rock Live!” ran for an additional year. The residency in the Swenson building, albeit brief, afforded the Guggenheims to cultivate relationships with regional shopping centers for cross promotional opportunities ultimately leading to a long list of clients that relied on GE to provide entertainment for the retails centers. Now, almost 30 later, Guggenheim Entertainment is one of just a handful of senior businesses that every major shopping center in the San Francisco Bay Area has called upon to provide Santa’s arrival events, fashion shows, live musicians, and much, much more.

In 2002, a side endeavor was launched when the Guggenheims were called upon by the greater Jewish community to create a holiday experience to answer the “December dilemma”; the notion that Jewish families looking for holiday entertainment that wasn’t Christmas-centric had little to satisfy them. In a mere three months, the Guggenheims penned and workshopped a new musical that told the story of Chanukah using the music of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet. Over the next 20 years, “The MeshugaNutcracker!” would have multiple national tours, a national release as a Fathom Event in more than 500 movie theaters, and an annual residency on BroadwayHD where the show is available to be streamed. 

In 2009, Guggenheim Entertainment stumbled upon a vacant venue in West Saratoga and set wheels in motion to make it home. The Retro Dome was born when Guggenheim Entertainment leveraged three decades of success as a theatrical production company to first renovate, rebrand, and revitalize what was Century 25 at the intersection of Saratoga, Campbell, San Jose, and Cupertino. The venue had twin auditoriums of 350 seats each, allowing the Guggenheims to create and endless amount of live theatrical and cinema experiences for all ages and interests…until the venue was razed in 2013 by developers.

In 2017, after a few more years solely focused on touring the state with their original musicals and events, the Guggenheims welcomed the opportunity presented by the City of San Jose to lead the renovation, rebranding, and revitalization of Camera 3 Cinemas in Downtown San Jose. Guggenheim Entertainment reopened the venue as 3Below Theaters in January 2018 serving as operations managers, programming designers, and hosts to long-running arts agencies Cinequest and ComedySportz. In 2020, Guggenheim Entertainment resurrected its non-profit arm and launched San Jose Playhouse thus enhancing the profitability of all of our programs and the venue itself.

Since 1990, Guggenheim Entertainment has been producing live theatre and events throughout California. Our residency at 3Below Theaters in Downtown San Jose means we can pack the calendar with exciting, innovative, fun, and memorable theatrical experiences. 

You can look forward to 4-6 musicals and/or plays each year as well as cabaret nights, open mic nights, family game nights, Broadway karaoke nights, and special events for adults. Our Playhouse Series features professional performers and designers with oodles of experience and talent who are eager to delight you and make you feel better than you did when you walked into the venue.

Our talented and experienced staff works 24/7 to customize events just for you, your family, and your friends. 

We write musicals. We produce musicals. We go to see musicals. We LOVE musicals! Musical theatre: it’s what we do. And, it’s that love for something that makes you laugh, cry, smirk and gasp all in one show that drives all we do. We know we’re not doing brain surgery, but we also know how powerful a theatrical experience can be. By integrating quality, education, and humor into all of our events and performances, we stand poised to inspire excellence in programming for youth, families, adults, and seniors showing people the best in themselves.

As the audience grows at 3Below you can look forward to not only Professional Musical Theatre productions performed by our team of pros but additional productions featuring community members, seniors, teens, and youth.

Our talented and experienced staff works 24/7 to customize events just for you, your family, and your friends. 

It is amazing how powerful a trip to the movie theatre can be. As our culture moves toward one that is complacent enjoying our art in an isolated manner (on our phones, our laptops, our televisions), we will continue to be a place where art is experienced together as a community. People are meant to be engaged and entertained by their art. Together we are meant to discuss the ideas and messages presented by the artist. 

By hand selecting new independent films offered in tandem with revival and retro favorites (including sing-along and quote-along event experiences), 3Below in downtown San Jose will remain the best place to find cinema gems, those classic and those destined to become so. 

Our Cinephilosophy
The dictionary states a cinephile is someone who is fond of movies. But for us, it’s more than a fondness; it’s believing how amazingly powerful a trip to the movie theatre can be. That’s our “cinephilosophy.”

We have become complacent enjoying our art in an isolated manner: we seek our art on our phones, our laptops, our televisions; we listen to our music wearing headphones; we experience fine art by ourselves online. And while technology is certainly beneficial to our human experience, we believe art is meant to be shared. 

Art is meant to be experienced together as a community. People are meant to be engaged and entertained by their art. Together we are meant to discuss the ideas and messages presented by the artist. 

So that’s what we do here. We encourage discussion. We engage you and your family and friends by starting the conversation here at the theatre and inspire and encourage you to continue the discussion at home, at work, and in the classroom. We offer you art and artists that are bigger than life, that add depth to our lives.

Taking its name from that magical place where childhood fantasy runs wild, The Clubhouse at 3Below offers year-round programming to engage and “wow” youth and their families.

Our Clubhouse series is wonderfully interactive and includes

Guggenheim Entertainment is known for developing innovative new works for the stage, and The Schoolhouse classes are a perfect way to get a taste of the magic that goes into creating a musical at one of the most critically acclaimed and award-winning renowned regional theatre companies.

The Schoolhouse at 3Below offers a curriculum designed so students of all ages may develop creative skills, discover new awareness of self-expression, and gain awareness of theatre as a profession.