The SFSCA was founded by Wendy Parkman and Judy Finelli as a project of the Pickle Family Circus in 1984. Sixteen children made up the first class rosters. The students trained at the Pickle's headquarters in an old church on San Francisco's Potrero Hill.

In 1990 Judy Finelli hired master trainer Lu Yi, former star performer and artistic director of the Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe, to head the school and to develop the most comprehensive Chinese acrobatics program outside of China. That goal was soon met with the arrival of two of Lu Yi's proteg's from Nanjing.

The school became a separate non-profit corporation in 1993 and moved into a vacant high school gymnasium in the Haight Ashbury district. To give his students performing opportunities, Lu Yi established the San Francisco Circus in 1996. The following December the school staged its first student production, Zoppo!, a show that played to a sold-out house at the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason. Subsequent shows were produced each of the following two years at Theater Artaud, with similar success.

In July 2000 the school purchased the New Pickle Circus from the Santa Cruz-based non-profit organization that had produced the company's shows since 1993. One hundred percent of the purchase price was raised from contributed sources. Now, the organization's professional productions are staged under the banner of the New Pickle Circus. Typically, shows are produced at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco during the holiday season, then, in January, tour regional performing arts centers in Mountain View, Rohnert Park and Walnut Creek. Student productions are mounted by the San Francisco Circus, which, during the summer of 2002, will tour indoor performing venues throughout California.

Reflecting the fact that the organization now encompasses more than a school, the board of directors changed the corporation's name to Circus Center in 2001.

Wendy Parkman
in the Pickle
Family Circus,
circa 1980