Trust gets extra time to get Amargosa Opera House in order

Marta Becket’s Amargosa Opera House remains mired in a backlog of paperwork, but those in charge of her legacy insist the show will go on.

In fact, it already is.

The current performance season, with ballerina Hilda Vasquez dancing on the stage Becket made famous, runs through April 13 at the lonesome theater in Death Valley Junction, California, 95 miles west of Las Vegas.

Fred Conboy, board member for Amargosa Opera House Inc., said the charitable trust that owns and operates Becket’s creation has been granted more time to submit years of delinquent tax filings and unpaid fees to the IRS and California regulators.

In an email Wednesday, Conboy said the trust now has until May 15 to bring its paperwork up to date. “We will meet that deadline early,” he vowed.

WARNING LETTER FROM AG

The California attorney general’s office sent a delinquency letter to the trust in December warning that its tax-exempt status was in jeopardy. A follow-up notice, sent Feb. 7, warned that the trust’s registration was about to be suspended or revoked, effectively barring the opera house from conducting business in California.

Las Vegas tavern owner Peter Simon has been helping out with the opera house off and on for more than 40 years. He said the trust’s paperwork fell into neglect in recent years because so much focus was on Marta and her failing health.

Becket, 92, died of natural causes at her home in Death Valley Junction on Jan. 30.

She staged her first show at the Amargosa Opera House on Feb. 10, 1968, about a year after she and her then-husband discovered the abandoned theater during a brief stop in the fading mining town just across the border from Nevada.

In the decades that followed, the classically trained ballerina from New York City regularly performed her own original productions, dancing and pantomiming for the intricately detailed Renaissance theater audience she painted herself, as well as live paying customers.

Becket also started the charitable trust that still owns the 254-acre town site, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Simon said he expects the trust’s paperwork problems to be cleared up before the end of April. Then the focus will shift to a fundraising campaign aimed at repairing and preserving buildings on the site while developing Becket’s vision of an art enclave dedicated to classical theater, music and painting.

‘DEFERRED MAINTENANCE’

Simon said the main building is sound, but it needs significant plumbing and electrical work and a fresh coat of paint.

“It has what we call in the business some deferred maintenance,” he said with a laugh.

Asked how much money it will take to fix the place up and preserve it for the future, Simon said, “All I can get my hands on.”

To that end, Conboy said the opera house will soon announce what he called a major event this fall featuring a classical dance performance and “another premier spectacle.” More details will be released next month, he said.

In the meantime, the opera house, renovated hotel and nearby cafe are all open for business, as is a new costume and prop museum dedicated to Becket’s career.

“We miss Marta horribly,” Simon said, “but we’re moving forward to preserve her wishes.”

Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com. Follow @refriedbrean on Twitter.