Friday Night Footlights: How Theater Bonds a Colorado Town

Silver mining may have disappeared, but Creede Repertory Theater has been an economic and cultural boon to its community for 50 years.

CREEDE, Colo. — Perched at 8,900 feet in the San Juan Mountains, five hours from the nearest major airport and near the Rio Grande headwaters, Creede is a town of around 350 full-time residents, with one grocery store, one gas station and a fast-rushing flume. A traffic light? Now you’re asking for a lot. What it does have, most surprisingly, is an ambitious theater that has been running for 56 years. I had never heard of Creede Repertory Theater until the name came up after Googling “most remote theater in the United States” one day. My curiosity was piqued. Ask the Tony- and Emmy Award-winning actor Mandy Patinkin, a company member in 1971 and 1974, who ended up building a home here in Mineral County. “Paradise was defined for me and birthed in me by the theater of Creede, Colorado,” he said by phone recently. “It taught me what the theater was truly about: everyone working together to bring people together.”