[photo credit: VATCHE & TAMAR MANOUKIAN CULTURAL & PERFORMING ARTS CENTER]
The January 7, 2025 blaze destroyed the Charles S. Farnsworth Park Amphitheatre — home to Altadena Music Theatre since 2022 — and burned through the Altadena neighborhood where Azcarate and her co-director and husband, Oliver Azcarate, had built their life. Their home was gone. So was the stage.
Fifteen months later, AMT is bringing a three-time Academy Award winner whose musicals have run on Broadway for decades, according to his official biography, to a Pasadena performance hall to help fund its return. On Sunday, May 24, Stephen Schwartz — the composer and lyricist behind Wicked, Pippin, and Godspell — will headline “An Evening with Stephen Schwartz,” a benefit gala at the AGBU Vatche & Tamar Manoukian Performing Arts Center at 2495 E Mountain St. in Pasadena. Proceeds, according to AMT, will support the organization’s goal of resuming professional musical theater productions in Altadena this summer.
Schwartz, 78, whose career has earned him three Academy Awards and what his official website describes as four Grammy Awards, will perform alongside an ensemble of acclaimed stage and screen performers. The lineup, as announced by AMT, includes Joey McIntyre of New Kids on the Block; Alisan Porter, winner of Season 10 of NBC’s The Voice and a veteran of the 2006 Broadway revival of A Chorus Line; Ty Taylor, frontman of the soul-rock band Vintage Trouble; and Brian Justin Crum, who as a teenager was part of the original Broadway company of Wicked and later competed on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. AMT has also announced additional unnamed “special guests.”
Azcarate founded AMT in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, staging the company’s first production — Hair — in the summer of 2022 under the open sky at Farnsworth Park. The organization grew to mount full-scale professional productions including Cabaret and Guys & Dolls, alongside youth education programs and summer theater camps.
“In 2021 I was inspired to start a theatre company in the beautiful 100 year old Charles Farnsworth Park Amphitheatre,” Azcarate wrote in a letter to supporters posted to AMT’s website after the fire. “That life changing endeavor created such meaningful connections with our community, and brought about unforgettable experiences with casts, and other creatives and audiences celebrating the arts through musical theatre.”
Her letter went further: “I want you all to know that we have not given up.”
AMT, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, has moved its operations to the Manoukian Performing Arts Center while Farnsworth Park undergoes restoration — a process that is underway following the announcement of more than $60 million in public and private recovery funding for Altadena parks, including a $150,000 contribution from the Los Angeles Philharmonic designated specifically for the Farnsworth Amphitheatre. A January 2026 benefit screening of the Cabaret film at the same venue helped the organization begin rebuilding its community and financial footing.
The Manoukian PAC’s main stage seats approximately 575 to 600 guests. AMT describes the gala as “intimate” and notes that availability is limited. The event format, per AMT’s website, is designed as a “refined, gala-style experience.”
If You Go: “An Evening with Stephen Schwartz” benefits Altadena Music Theatre on Sunday, May 24, 2026. The cocktail hour begins at 6:30 p.m. and the performance begins at 7:30 p.m. at the AGBU Vatche & Tamar Manoukian Performing Arts Center, 2495 E Mountain St., Pasadena, CA 91104. Two ticket tiers are available: VIP Premier (includes admission, cocktail hour food and drinks, reserved parking, and a meet-and-greet with performers) and VIP (includes admission, cocktail hour food and drinks). Ticket prices were not publicly listed at time of publication; for tickets and information, visit agbupac.ticketspice.com/
