Performers rehearsing for San Diego Junior Theatre's production of The Gypsy Baron, an operetta by Johann Strauss II which premiered in October 1885. Its libretto was by the author Ignaz Schnitzer. The scoring and the nature of Strauss's music have also led many music critics to consider this work a comic opera or a lyric opera. Established in 1948 in Balboa Park, San Diego Junior Theatre is the oldest youth theatre program in the United States, producing shows acted and crewed by children ages 8-18.