Fallon House Theatre

11175 Washington Street / Columbia, CA

Pacific students have been a part of the Livermore Shakespeare Festival apprentice program since Tromovitch joined University of the Pacific in 2007.
Before that, several generations of students took the stage at Pacific's Summer Theatre Company at the Fallon House Theatre in Columbia State Park
in the Mother Lode. The run-down hotel was restored in the late 1940s by the University, which deeded the facility to the State of California in 1947,
when Columbia became a state park, and the hotel became a historic site.

However, the University retained the franchise rights to the Fallon House, and the Summer Company was born when Pacific students staged a historical
melodrama onsite as part of a Gold Rush Centennial celebration. The company performed its first full season in the summer of 1950. Pacific relinquished
its franchise rights to the property in the late 1980s

Wolak, who taught at Pacific for 32 years, recalled that the Fallon House students formed an intimate company.

"They lived together, ate meals together, rehearsed together, performed chores together," he says. "When they were done with the summer,
they really knew if this was the life and career they wanted to pursue."

The Fallon House season was intense: five plays staged in five weeks, with every aspect of the production - casting, staging, set and costume construction,
rehearsals - starting on a Sunday and the show opening the following Saturday. The shows continued in repertory for an additional four to five weeks. It was
a strenuous undertaking, but became a beloved part of summers in the Mother Lode. One of the leading programs of its kind in the U.S., it hosted hundreds of
students who went on to become leaders in the performing arts. According to one of the publicity packets produced for the final summer season, over a quarter
of a million tickets were sold during the company's 36-year run.

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