Cultural Restoration

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Twenty years ago, Herb Stratford ’88 ’95 led the renovation and revival of the now thriving Fox Tucson Theatre on West Congress Street in downtown Tucson. After the Fox was up and running, he returned to his work as a film festival organizer, critic and arts consultant. Then, in 2019, Demion Clinco of the Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation called Stratford out of the blue. “I have your next project,” he said. An old, run-down building on South Meyer Avenue — Teatro Carmen, the oldest playhouse in Tucson — was up for sale.

Stratford couldn’t resist. Stratford Artworks — the nonprofit he started 30 years ago with his wife, Kerry ’87 — bought the building, and he turned to his University of Arizona connections to plan for the renovation and eventual reopening of the theater. Corky Poster, a retired U of A professor of architecture, came on as a consultant. Student interns from the U of A School of Music and School of Theatre, Film & Television were recruited to help with research. And the archives in the Special Collections at the U of A Main Library provided a treasure trove of historical records, especially the Jack Sheaffer collection. 

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In 1861, when Carmen Soto de Vásquez was born in Tucson, no one would have imagined the little girl would grow up to be one of the town’s leading impresarios. But in 1914, when she was 53, her husband, Ramón Vásquez, bought her a building on South Meyer Avenue in the bustling downtown neighborhood now known as Barrio Viejo. The structure had been a house, built around 1860 with adobe bricks made at a quarry at the base of “A” Mountain.

Carmen hired Manuel Flores, a local master mason and carpenter, to convert the house into a glamorous theater. He applied stucco to the walls, designed a lovely green proscenium over the stage and installed a copper-colored ceiling of embossed steel panels.

The theater opened on May 20, 1915. For her first show, Carmen chose a play, “Cerebro y Corazón,” by Mexican playwright Teresa Farías de Isassi. The critic who wrote as El Cronista for El Tucsonense, a Spanish-language newspaper, gave the theater a rave review: “Comfortable, roomy seating, good lighting and magnificent artistic décor accompanied by the high level of artistic performance with which it was inaugurated provide a new note to our art and society.”

Over the next decade, Carmen Soto de Vásquez produced Spanish-language plays, operas and concerts performed by leading Mexican and Mexican American artists. Linda Ronstadt believes that her aunt, Luisa Ronstadt Espinel, a celebrated singer herself, may have been one of those artists. Carmen also offered serious plays alongside short comedies and musical theater. Eventually, she added a projection booth to show the newly popular silent movies. Tucson was still a largely Spanish-speaking town, and her theater quickly became its cultural hub.

But her success did not last. Despite her efforts, in 1922, Teatro Carmen failed. Just why is uncertain. Perhaps the public’s taste in entertainment was changing. A new theater, the Rialto, had opened on West Congress Street in 1919 and was showing motion pictures.

Soon afterward, Carmen and her husband, Ramón, moved to Nogales, where he built a successful retail business. Her theater fell into disrepair, and the building was sold in 1926. For a while, it was a car repair shop, and the elegant facade was broken to accommodate a garage door. For Carmen, it must have seemed a sad end to her dreams. She died in Nogales in October 1934.

In 1936, the Elks-Pilgrim Rest Lodge #601, a local African American civic group, bought Teatro Carmen, beginning the next chapter in the story of this barrio landmark. In 1941, they expanded into the property next door to build a private social club complete with a billiards room, a smoking room and a bar. The club, the Black Elks Lodge, remained active until 1986.

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Jack Sheaffer, a photographer for the Arizona Daily Star whose archive is now in the Special Collections at the U of A Main Library, did a feature on the Black Elks Lodge in the 1950s. His photographs are the only photos of the interior of Teatro Carmen that Stratford has found so far — from any period of its history. One is a group portrait taken at a formal banquet, with men in tuxedos and women in fancy white party dresses. Another shows five happy mothers, all dressed up for a Christmas party, sitting together with babies on their laps.

Memorabilia from the Black Elks Lodge will be on display once the renovations are complete. In the meantime, Stratford has been reaching out to neighbors and to local historians to learn more about the club’s history. Elsewhere in the United States, Black Elks clubs were active in the early Civil Rights Movement and were gathering places for World War II servicemen and veterans.

For Stratford, one of the pleasures of the project is learning more about the history of this stretch of South Meyer Avenue. “Anytime I’m standing outside and neighbors walk by, they are all so excited to see what is happening,” he says. Many have shared their stories about both the theater and the lodge.

Stratford Artworks also purchased the vacant corner lot on the block, which had housed a Chinese market during the glory days of Teatro Carmen. Homer Thiel of Desert Archaeology was enlisted to do salvage archaeology there. He found intact Chinese porcelain pots and other artifacts that eventually will be put on display. In Stratford’s words, “What’s so iconic about this project is that it has Hispanic heritage, African American heritage and Chinese heritage, all within the same block. That makes it really special. The barrio in Tucson really was this incredible melting pot of different cultures.”

With his board, he plans for the revival of Teatro Carmen as a center for Latino performing arts. The Black Elks Lodge will house a restaurant with displays that celebrate the history of Tucson’s Black community. And the corner lot will be an outdoor patio and performing space for musicians and other artists. If all goes well, the restaurant will open in 2027.

The Teatro Carmen renovation will cost around $9 million. Early on, Pima County pumped $2.1 million into the project in exchange for assuming ownership of the historic property. The agreement established a formal public-private partnership, keeping Stratford in charge of the renovations, including fundraising, and the operation of the theater and restaurant once they are completed. This past summer, the county added another $1 million for a new roof. Stratford plans for most of the remaining costs to be met with private gifts and donations.

The first phase of renovations also received $300,000 from the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund. Stratford started by rebuilding the original brick facade, the public face of the building. For years, Teatro Carmen had stood out on South Meyer Avenue with its bright yellow stucco facade and the marquee above the center door. None of that was original. It had been plastered and painted in 1994 for (of all things!) a movie set, for “Boys on the Side,” starring Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore and Matthew McConaughey. Today the facade still stands out, but it has been restored to its original “A” Mountain brick.

The spirit of Carmen Soto de Vásquez still looms large over the restoration of her beloved theater. For now, a huge portrait of her face in black and white hangs in the entryway to greet carpenters, masons and painters as they arrive to do their work. And to keep inspiring Herb Stratford as his team brings the building back to life.

For more on Carmen Soto de Vásquez and Teatro Carmen, read Jan Cleere’s “Western Women: Carmen Soto’s Theater was a Cultural Center,” published in the Arizona Daily Star Nov. 6, 2015, and Thomas E. Sheridan’s “Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941,” published by the University of Arizona Press in 1986.