{"id":89321,"date":"2020-04-15T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T06:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/after-nearly-60-years-the-henry-strater-theatre-closes\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:48:16","slug":"after-nearly-60-years-the-henry-strater-theatre-closes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/after-nearly-60-years-the-henry-strater-theatre-closes\/","title":{"rendered":"After nearly 60 years, the Henry Strater Theatre closes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"After
After 60 years, the Henry Strater Theatre, which is accessible via the Strater Hotel, in the 600 block of Main Avenue in Durango, will close. The theater is separately owned from the hotel.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Henry Strater Theatre has closed, marking the end of one of downtown Durango\u2019s most prized event spaces that has provided entertainment for nearly 60 years.<\/p>\n

Rod Barker, president and CEO of the Strater Hotel, said the theater, adjacent to the hotel on the 600 block of Main Avenue, is actually not part of the building complex the Barker family owns.<\/p>\n

Instead, the event space has been leased from a consortium of owners \u2013 known as Main Avenue Partners LLC \u2013 for the past 58 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s been a challenge for us to afford what it takes to lease a building and a space like that for all these years, especially one that\u2019s for theater and events,\u201d Barker said.<\/p>\n

Now, with the coronavirus outbreak precluding large gatherings for the immediate future, Barker said it was time to close.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just come to a point, with this virus, that\u2019s pushed us over the tipping point where we can no longer extend ourselves on those kind of expenses,\u201d he said. \u201cWe bought the building over many times just in rent. It\u2019s time for us to figure something else out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barker said the decision to close was not made lightly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a wonderful theater,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of magical things happened there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in the mid-1900s, the building where the theater now stands was an automobile garage workshop.<\/p>\n

But a group of Durangoans \u2013 Orvis Grout, Mahlon White and Mort McGinley, as well as Barker\u2019s father, Earl, and grandmother, Marion Jarvis, and others \u2013 opened what was then called the \u201cDiamond Circle Theatre\u201d in the space in 1962.<\/p>\n

\u201cUp until that point, Durango was a business community \u2013 mining, ranching,\u201d Barker said. \u201cThis was Durango\u2019s first foray into having family entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The historic venue prided itself on melodramas, Barker said. And as Durango\u2019s entertainment and tourism economy grew, so too did the events at the space.<\/p>\n

The theater, renamed in 2008 as the Henry Strater Theatre, in recent years hosted countless live concerts, like Judy Collins and George Winston; numerous festivals, such as the Durango Celtic Festival, Bluegrass Meltdown and Cowboy Poetry Gathering; and countless events and conferences, such as the Green Business Roundtable.<\/p>\n

Since 1987, the Henry Strater Theatre has been home to the popular Snowdown Follies. Janalee Hogan, an organizer of the event, said it\u2019s going to be difficult to find a space to replace the theater.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a significant loss for our community,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll find a way to deliver some fun and frivolity \u2026 but we\u2019re going to have to come together and find solutions. This community has struggled to find an option for a new theater space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Main Avenue Partners LLC is a group made up of mostly longtime Durango families. One of its representatives, local lawyer Nick Anesi, said the owners have yet to come together to figure out the future of the space, which has been made more complicated by the coronavirus outbreak.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say what\u2019s going to happen at this point,\u201d Anesi said. \u201cWe have to see what people want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barker, for his part, said the Strater Hotel is still looking for ways to be a central go-to for live events. He said the company is looking into the possibility of developing the vacant lot between the hotel and Denny\u2019s as a possible future development site for a new theater.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe all these groups and events will have a new future in that location,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see, but it\u2019s always been a dream of mine for a long time to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

terminates lease at popular event space<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[314,13,28,29,910,810],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-89321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-downtown-durango","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-theatre","tag-tourism-recreation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89322,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89321\/revisions\/89322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89321"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=89321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}