The History of CCMP

City Centre Musical Productions (CCMP) is a Mississauga based community theatre group. All members share a love of music, song and performance.

We owe the continuing existence of CCMP to the enterprise and inspiration of two people. Both our Founder, Eleanor Calbes and our President Emeritus, husband Jack Thomson have been part of the Mississauga music scene for many years and CCMP since its inception. Eleanor has had an illustrious career in both opera and Broadway productions. All who have visited her studio have seen the photograph of her being presented to Prince Philip during a “Command Performance”. For his part, Jack, who hails from Northern Ontario, has been involved with music all his life and spent many years with Clarkson Music Theatre before joining forces with Eleanor.

In 1985, Eleanor founded the first opera company in Mississauga, Mississauga City Centre Opera (MCCO). However, it soon became evident that MCCO did not provide an outlet for many good singer/performers whose preference was for musical theatre. Accordingly, in 1987 CVS (an acronym for Calbes Voice Studio) was founded as a family orientated workshop for music theatre.

For the first eight years Eleanor and Jack personally financed the productions and through their collective artistic leadership the group became known for quality performances When Meadowvale Theatre opened its doors in 1989, CVS’s first production there was “The Sound of Music”. A feature of the performance methodology during this period was double and sometimes triple casting. This was seen to be in keeping with the policy of exposing as many young actors and singers to performance in order to develop their collective talents.

During these years the group performed concerts in the Spring and at Christmas, with a full musical production in August. Eleanor was also instrumental in starting the CVS Scholarship in which young singers up to the age of 19 compete in three age categories for monetary awards to be used to further their studies.

In 1995 the Board agreed to incorporate CVS and received its Charitable designation under the new name of CVS Musical Productions. By doing so Eleanor and Jack were relieved of the burden of financial responsibility and the group was now deemed stable enough to stand on its own.

Over this period, while performance standards remained as high as ever, audience levels began to drop. It was soon identified that August, as the date for our major annual show was becoming a liability. The Board sought solutions to the problem and in the process became interested in Music Theatre Mississauga (MTM).

The late 90s and early 00’s heralded in a number of positive changes which collectively have added significantly to the financial and performing stability of our company. At the time MTM was the marketing arm for three community theatre groups which performed four musicals productions over the fall/winter months. In a period of about 6 years, MTM had been successful in creating vibrant subscriber interest. As increased audience participation was deemed our number one priority MTM seemed to be an obvious fit. The merger with MTM took place in 2001 when we performed “Oklahoma”. In 2004 “My Fair Lady” represented our fourth production under the MTM banner and benefiting from 1350 subscribers the show played to 93% attendance.

In 1999 the Board voted to again change the group’s name to City Centre Musical Productions or CCMP. The Board wanted the groups name to reflect its growth in the Mississauga community and to be recognized as a city wide institution. Also at about this time the City granted our application for a Bingo License.

Based on higher attendance plus regular Bingo revenues, CCMP has attained a significant degree of financial stability. This has allowed for the ongoing production of a cabaret series (Cabaret Etoile?) which we are attempting to develop into our own subscriber supported event.

CCMP continues to develop from strength to strength. However in all our production endeavours we continue to be guided by the original tenets of the company which were laid down 17 years ago by Eleanor and Jack. Such are the basis of our success to date.