Marta Becket
Encyclopedia
Amargosa Opera House and Hotel
Amargosa Opera House and Hotel is a historic building and cultural center located in Death Valley Junction, in eastern Inyo County, California near Death Valley National Park. Resident artist Marta Becket has staged dance and mime shows there since the late 1960s...
in Death Valley Junction
Death Valley Junction, California
Death Valley Junction is a tiny Mojave Desert community in unincorporated Inyo County, California, at the intersection of SR 190 and SR 127, just east of Death Valley National Park. The zip code is 92328, the elevation is , and the population fewer than 20. The city limits sign reports a...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Amargosa (2000), Todd Robinson's documentary about Marta Becket won a 2003 Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for cinematographer Curt Apduhan
Curt Apduhan
Curt Apduhan is an Emmy Award winning director of photography known for his work in feature documentaries. Apduhan's contributions to director Todd Robinson's documentary film Amargosa, a study of artist Marta Becket earned the cinematographer the NATAS 2002 News/Documentary Emmy for outstanding...
, in addition to the film's numerous festival awards and nominations.
Becket on Broadway
Becket began ballet lessons at age 14, which eventually led to performances as a ballerina, On Broadway and was in the corp de ballet at Radio City Music HallRadio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...
. On Broadway she appeared in Show Boat
Show Boat
Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...
, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn may refer to:*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , a novel by Betty Smith*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , the cinema adaptation of the novel*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , the stage adaptation of the novel...
and Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town is a musical with a book written by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein...
. Later, she took her one-woman show across the country, performing in small theaters and school auditoriums. She married in 1962, and she was on her way with her husband to an engagement in 1967 when, due to a flat tire, she discovered a theater in Death Valley Junction and decided to stay.
From Borax to ballet
The theater was part of a company town designed by architect Alexander Hamilton McCulloch and constructed in 1923–25 by the Pacific Coast Borax CompanyPacific Coast Borax Company
The Pacific Coast Borax Company was a United States mining company founded in 1890 by the American borax magnate Francis "Borax" Smith, the "Borax King".-History:...
. The U-shaped complex of Mexican Colonial-style adobe buildings included company offices, a store, a dorm, a 23-room hotel, dining room, lobby and employees' headquarters. At the northeast end of the complex was a recreation hall used as a community center for dances, church services, movies, funerals and town meetings.
Becket rented the recreation hall, then known as Corkhill Hall, began repairs and changed the name to the Amargosa Opera House. In 1970, journalists from National Geographic discovered Becket doing a performance at the Amargosa Opera House without an audience. Their profile and another in Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
led to an international interest in Becket and her theater. She began performing to visitors from around the world, including such notables as Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
and Red Skelton
Red Skelton
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...
.
In recent years, Becket dropped the dancing to perform weekly The Sitting Down Show. Becket ceased performing in her Amargosa Opera House at the end of the 2008-09 season but began performing again in 2010. Becket has occupied the theater since 1968 and personally created the murals and sets. The performances have been the sole source of income for both the Opera House (now owned by Marta's non-profit organization) and the entire town.
Books
Her autobiography, To Dance on Sands: The Life and Art of Death Valley's Marta Becket, was published in 2007.For the book Star Performance: The Story of the World's Great Ballerinas, by Walter Terry (Doubleday, 1956), Becket did 42 full-page illustrations, plus ten smaller illustrations for the glossary.