Summer programming at the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, Colo., includes tours that show newly discovered stage scenery dating to 1879 as well as a theater workshop for local youth.

Live performances will not be held this season, due to uncertainties surrounding COVID-19. Performances will return in 2022.

Summer Tours Start May 28, 2021

This summer, people who tour the Tabor Opera House will be among the first to see select pieces from one of the most historically significant collections of historic stage scenery in North America. This hand-painted scenery and stage machinery, created between 1879 and 1902, was uncovered last year in the Tabor’s attic. 

“We were amazed and thrilled to find more than 200 large-scale artworks in deep storage at the Tabor and to learn that our extensive historic stage scenery collections were a find of national significance,” said Jenny Buddenborg, president of the Tabor Opera House Preservation Foundation. “We are excited to share select pieces with tour guests this summer.”

Visitors will also cross the Tabor Opera House’s famous stage, where luminaries such as Oscar Wilde, John Philip Sousa, Jack Dempsey, and more have performed. Tour guests can see the original red velvet chairs and marble-backed lightboard, visit the dressing rooms, and hear intriguing stories of the Tabor’s past and its many famous guests.

Tours will open for the season on Friday, May 28, 2021, and run each weekend until Sunday, Sept. 5, 2021. Tours will take place Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, four times a day: 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2 p.m., and 3:30 p.m.

Visitors may buy tickets in advance at TaborOperaHouse.net and cost from $12-$15. Children aged 10 and under, accompanied by an adult, may tour for free. Visitors will be required to wear face coverings and are advised to bring a jacket, as due to the ongoing historic rehabilitation the building may be cool.

Tabor Youth Collective Offers Free Theater Workshop in June

The Tabor Youth Collective will return in 2021, offering a free workshop for local youth led by Jimmy Maize and Maridee Slater, professional theater artists from New York City. The “Creating Original Theater Workshop” will take place June 22-26, 2021. The workshop is open to participants who are 13 to 20 years old.

“We are excited to give local youth the opportunity to learn from national theater experts at no cost,” said Sara Edwards, a Foundation board member leading the effort. “This five-day workshop will be offered to teens in the Lake County community free of charge, thanks to the generosity of the artists and grants from the Lake County Community Fund, Leadville Trail 100 Legacy Foundation, and Leadville Race Series.”

Youth who are interested should register at http://bit.ly/TaborYouth by June 10, 2021. Space is limited to 15 participants. Precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will be required.

Maize is a writer/director/designer based in New York City and current U.S. associate director on Broadway’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. He is a 15-year member of Tectonic Theater Project, where he has been instrumental in the development of the TONY Award-winning 33 Variations (Broadway, starring Jane Fonda), the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife (Broadway), the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Broadway, starring Robin Williams), and The Laramie Project (national tour).

Slater is a director/writer/designer living in Minneapolis, Minn., and Brooklyn, NY, and is co-founder of factorythirteen, a horror-centric live and virtual experience company. Her most recent projects include directing Minneapolis-based Haunted Basement, a radically inclusive avant-garde haunted house, writing for Line 3 of Britt Genelin’s What is Love?, and organizing curation and display of political street artworks in collaboration with MPLS Lab and #SaveOurBoards.