Albuquerque NM 18 June 2019: The
Albuquerque Little Theater, 224 San
Pasquale Avenue SW, corner of Chacoma Place. ALT spent its first six years
in the ornate
KiMo
movie theater, then moved in 1936 to a new building of their own
created specially for it by the
Works Progress Administration and
designed by the famed southwestern Architect John Gaw Meem; it was the first
structure to be built in Albuquerque by FDR's New Deal. The labor was
supplied by the WPA and the NYA; the land and lumber were provided on credit
by private companies and all other materials were were paid for the Little
Theater itself. The building was dedicated in 1936 and Harry Hopkins was
the honored guest. In the early years, well-known guest performers included
Edward Everett Horton, ZaZu Pitts, Lon Chaney, and Leo G. Carroll.
The cream and white structure shown in this and some of the following
structures is a post-New-Deal façade fronting the original brick building which contains the
theater itself.
References
- Albuquerque
Little Theatre website, albuquerquelittletheatre.org/about-us/history/,
accessed 12 July 2019.
- Terry Ray, The
Albuquerque Little Theatre, New Mexico Quarterly, Volume 30,
Issue 1, 1960.
- Hispana/Hispano
Artists and their Works, internationalfolkart.org, accessed 12 July
2019:
Idelbert Delgado of the WPA's Federal Art Project, who contributed sconces,
niches, mirrors, flower vases, and candleholders to the Theater.
- Kathryn A. Flynn, Public Art and Architecture in New Mexico
1933-1943: A guide to the New Deal Legacy, Sunstone Press (2012), pp.29-30.
- Albuquerque
Little Theatre, Wikipedia, accessed 12 July 2019.