Bridges Auditorium from “The West Wing”

I am one of the few people in the world who did not watch The West Wing when it was on the air.  And boy was I missing out!  The Grim Cheaper and I started binging the series on a whim this past January and now can’t get enough!  The show is so good, I could cry!  It’s literally one of the best productions to ever grace television screens!  Early in our binging, I, of course, went on a deep dive to unearth some of its locations and was thrilled to come across a 2012 Architectural Digest article that spelled out one locale in particular, stating “Because The West Wing had not yet acquired an East Room set in time, the series’ second-season Christmas episode, ‘Noël,’ featuring the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, was filmed in the lobby of Pomona College’s Bridges Auditorium, in Claremont, California.”  Well, believe you me, the venue went straight to the top of my To-Stalk List and I headed out there way back in February, but I’ve held off on blogging about it as I figured it would make for an excellent holiday post.

The Mabel Shaw Bridges Music Auditorium, as it is formally known, was commissioned by Appleton and Amelia Shaw Bridges in honor of their daughter, Mabel, who passed away while attending Pomona College in 1907.

Designed by San Diego-based architect William Templeton Johnson in the Northern Italian Renaissance style, the venue was constructed from 1930 to 1931 at a cost of $650,000.

Bridges Auditorium was dedicated on September 18th, 1931 and its inaugural concert season officially kicked off the following month, on October 27th, with a performance by Artur Rodziński and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.  Since then, it has gone on to host a slew of celebrated personalities.  Just a few of the luminaries who have set foot on its stage include Steve Martin, Muhammad Ali, Amelia Earhart, Benny Goodman, James Earl Jones, and Bono.

Sadly, the hall was closed when I visited, so I did not get to see the interior.

The exterior is pretty darn spectacular, though, with a towering arched overhang lined with grand columns and topped by a cathedral ceiling.

The auditorium itself, which you can see photos of here, boasts rich red carpeting, seating for 2,494 guests, and a magical ceiling mural spanning 22,000 square feet that was hand-painted by Giovanni Smeraldi, the famed artist who also adorned the ceilings of Doheny Memorial Library’s Los Angeles Times Reference Room, the Pasadena Main Branch of the Bank of the West, St. Vincent de Paul Church, and the Millennium Biltmore Hotel’s South Galleria.  (The latter, coincidentally, is also a West Wing locale!)

It is Bridges Auditorium’s lobby that is its real claim to fame, though.  Featuring a coffered ceiling, marble columns, and a grand staircase, the versatile space has appeared onscreen as everything from a courthouse to a college admissions office to the White House (twice!).  You can take a look at the beautiful room here.

In The West Wing’s “Noël” episode, which aired in 2000, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his senior staff attend a congressional Christmas party during which Yo-Yo Ma performs – and yes, the actual Yo-Yo Ma guest-starred!  As mentioned above, the production team transformed Bridges’ lobby into the White House’s East Room for the shoot.  Architectural Digest notes, “Although smaller than the actual East Room—the largest room in the White House, primarily used for entertaining—the space, says [production designer Kenneth] Hardy, had the right feeling.  He and his production crew hung replica chandeliers and added chairs, flowers, and presidential portraits.”  It was a lot of preparation for what essentially amounted to about two minutes of screen time, much of which was interspersed with flashbacks of Josh Lyman’s (Bradley Whitford) shooting from Season 1.  Nevertheless, the space did look beautiful in the scene.

The Bridges Auditorium foyer also masked as the courthouse lobby where Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) collapsed in the 1988 drama Beaches.

It again portrayed the White House – this time its grand entry hall – in the 1993 comedy Dave.

And in the Season 3 episode of Gilmore Girls titled “Let the Games Begin,” which aired in 2002, the foyer masqueraded as the main administration building at Yale University, where Richard (Edward Herrmann) forced Rory (Alexis Bledel) into an impromptu interview with the Dean of Admissions.

The exterior of Bridges Auditorium also appeared briefly in the episode.

The theatre itself is where the body of a murdered ballerina is found in the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better,” which aired in 2018.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Bridges Auditorium, from the “Noël” episode of The West Wing, is located at 450 North College Way, on the Pomona College campus, in Claremont.

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