Montecasino
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Montecasino
Montecasino first opened its doors on 30 November 2000, basically consisting of Pieter Toerien's Theatre & Studio and expanded in May 2007 with the addition of the open-air Piazza - including the large new performance venue, The Teatro.
Montecasino's Piazza, which is slightly smaller than a rugby field and modeled on a typical Italian piazza features several restaurants where visitors can dine al fresco, and enjoy the mesmerizing musical fountain displays. The Piazza also features the SunSquare Hotel, aimed at the modern business tourist, the Montecasino Ballroom which can accommodate 400 people seated banquet style, and the spectacular Teatro at Montecasino, which opened with the legendary stage production The Lion King.
Theatres at Montecasino
Montecasino has two theatres – Pieter Toerien's Main Theatre & Studio and The Teatro. Past performances at both theatres have included: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, Lord of the Dance, The Merchants of Bollywood, Chicago - The Musical, Beauty and the Beast, High School Musical, Dirty Dancing, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, as well as the Jozi Comedy Festival.
Pieter Toerien's Theatre & Studio
Pieter Toerien's Theatre & Studio opened at Montecasino with Defending the Caveman in November 2000.
The Teatro
Also billed as The Teatro at Montecasino, this venue is acoustically designed for large scale musical productions and it can accommodate 1 870 people at full capacity. Despite the vast number of seats, the Teatro has an unmistakable intimacy and no seat is further than 33 metres from the stage. The Teatro was constructed at a cost of over R100 million by Tsogo Sun Gaming and is one of the 10 largest Lyric theatres in the world.
The venue opened its doors in May 2007 with a production of The Lion King (co-produced by Lebo M and Pieter Toerien), that played to packed audiences for 36 weeks, making South African history when it broke all box office records in South Africa, with over 550 000 people watching the show. This Disney musical is the longest-running and most successful show in South African theatre history. The show also received the distinction of being awarded the Best Production of a Musical category in the 2007 Naledi Awards, and Tsogo Sun Gaming was recognised for their contribution to the arts when it received the BASA Award for First Time Sponsor for the construction of the Teatro.
Since The Lion King closed in February 2008, the Teatro has played host to other local and international productions. , including
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