The Durango Heritage Celebration is the next best thing to owning a time machine.
As fantastic as that would be, it’s an unrealistic notion played out in fantasy and film that will never happen, no matter how exciting “Back to the Future” and the 1980s NBC time-travel show “Voyagers” were.
Now in its seventh year, the Heritage Celebration is a tribute to Durango in the years 1881-1912; a golden age for our town, when the mines and smelter were making people rich, the train carried much more than tourists to and from Silverton and growth was abundant throughout the area. The weekend-long event is a throwback to those times, with events that include period dress, a masquerade ball, a downtown promenade and more.
This year’s celebration also brings an interactive murder-mystery play and dinner to the Henry Strater Theatre tonight. Much like murder mystery weekends, it’s a piece of theater that involves the crowd attempting to solve the mystery through following the on-stage action and using the clues found earlier in places around town.
“Murder Makes a Reservation” is a four-act melodrama written by Suzanne Parker. Set in the late 1880s, the story takes place in two of Durango’s most significant historic places. The action begins aboard the train as it travels to Durango from Silverton. Someone is murdered on the train, and more slayings follow once the characters have checked into the Strater Hotel. As the play unfolds, the diners seated in the audience act as teams to solve the murders.
“Murder mysteries have been a relatively common form of plays for many years. I first attended one at the Henry Strater Theatre more than 10 years ago,” Parker wrote in an email interview. “These performances are not all historically oriented. This one is, and incorporates two of Durango’s major historic elements, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and the Strater Hotel.
“I created the script to follow from my general idea for the overall plot,” Parker continued. “I tried to include some language that would have been more common in the Victorian period than that which is used today, as well as some to fit with the background of the characters.”
Performing in the play are Geoff Johnson, Brad Abeyta, Ted Holteen, Leslie Hoxworth, Shan Wells, Linda Mack, Caitlin Cannon, Melissa Cheffers and Bob Thom.
Holteen was selected to play the villain. Though his stage career began just barely over a year ago, Holteen is embracing playing the antagonist in the role of a smarmy Englishman. It’s a role that fits in with the classic “villain” of melodrama.
“I’m just kind of a jerk that cheats on my wife constantly, and wants to scam a madam out of her whorehouse in Silverton and that sort of stuff,” Holteen said. “It’s more slimey than pure evil.”
Liggett_b@fortlewis.edu. Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager.
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Today: “Murder Makes a Reservation” murder mystery dinner play, 6 p.m., $45, Henry Strater Theatre, 699 Main Ave., 375-7160.
Today: Rock music with The Lawn Chair Kings, 6 p.m., no cover, Brew Pub & Kitchen, 117 W. College Drive, 259-5959.
