Amargosa Opera House a Secret Nevada Treasure

Marta Becket is either crazy, eccentric or inspired, depending upon who you talk with. For forty years Nevada had a secret that we didn’t often share with the world.  On the way to Death Valley (less than a two-hour jaunt from the Strip) there is a little old lady approaching 90 who spent her life creating one-woman plays in a decaying theater in the middle of nowhere often for no one but herself. 

At one time a professional ballerina who performed on Broadway and at Radio City Music Hall, in 1968 she stumbled upon a run-down theater in the middle of the desert and she felt like she found the her other half she says in her autobiography, “To Dance on Sands; the Life and Art of Death Valley’s Marta Becket.”  Once she found her theater, she choreographed solitary dance and mime performances, unfettered by creative collaboration or dissent.  She danced for locals, and children if they came.  (Only about 10 people live in Death Valley Junction and the nearest town is miles away).  She danced anyway if they did not, flitting over the empty stage in front of an empty house.

Eventually she guaranteed herself an audience, painting the decaying walls with images of elegantly dressed men and women who could watch her perform when no one else bothered.  Then, like a story line straight out of a Frank Capra movie, something began to happen.  People did bother, driving hundreds of miles to pay the $15 to see her quirky performances — three nights a week at 8:15 sharp.  Gradually the audience built until for the last decades, every performance sold out with patrons flocking in from all over the world.

She was profiled in National Geographic and Life magazines and performed for Ray Bradbury and Red Skelton.  David Lynch filmed a movie in her facility and she became the subject of an Academy Award nominated and Emmy Award-winning documentary film by Todd Robinson.

Marta and her theater have been the sole source of revenue for the small town for almost half a century.  Now protected as a  National Historic Site and run as a non-profit, the hotel and cafe have been restored and reopened.  Writers and other solitary artists make pilgrimages to the one-show town that has become a defacto artists retreat.  Some spend months in the hotel with their art, the untarnished desert and Marta.

Marta retired at the end of the 2008-2009 season.  Her story, however,  lives on in the Amargosa Opera House’s new show, “If These Walls Could Talk.”  See it before this singular lady moves on to a more permanent Opera House.

“IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK”

Inspired by Marta Becket

Created & performed by Sandy Scheller

through May 2, 2010

Saturday  at 7 p.m.

Sunday at 2 p.m.

Amargosa Opera House and Hotel (map it)

608 Death Valley Junction, CA 92328
PO Box 608
(760) 852-4441

$15, Children $12 (5-12 years) Reservations are required. Special Dates & Times can be arranged for groups or tours of 50 people or more.  Please contact the Hotel front desk for more information!
Friday Movie Night: 7 p.m. (schedule to be announced).

Image courtesy of http://sxc.hu.