Marta Becket's Amargosa Opera House

01/21/2026

Marta Becket's 58th Anniversary Celebration: A Tribute to Marta's Opera-themed Murals

08/09/2025

Celebrating Marta Becket's 101st Birthday, August 9, 2025

01/13/2025

https://open.substack.com/pub/grantfaulkner/p/creating-an-unexpected-audience-in?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=53tqt5

How Marta Becket danced to dust devils in the desert

01/02/2025

Saturday, February 15, 2025
Marta Becket's 57th Anniversary Celebration in her legendary
Amargosa Opera House
Performances: 2 pm & 7 pm
Post show Reception
Tickets $30 : (760) 852-4441

08/09/2024

Happy 100th Birthday, Marta!!!

01/03/2024

Come join us in celebrating Marta Becket's 56th Anniversary in her legendary Amargosa Opera House ... reception following in the Amargosa Hotel. Shows at 2 pm and 7 pm. Speaking of legendary, we will also celebrate the 90th Birthday of Jim Marsh, our dear, long-standing friend and patron!

12/15/2023

Dear Friends of Marta Becket:

We are thrilled to announce that the Ruth Foundation for the Arts has, once again, selected Marta Becket's Amargosa Opera House to receive a significant Core Grant to explore "What can be transformed when we ask what we want to keep, what we can lose and what we want to grow?"

Marta Becket's legacy will thrive because kindred artists and patrons continue to be inspired by her life and art in harmony with Ruth Arts' commitment to fostering the creative spirit in individuals and their communities.

We could not be more grateful for Ruth Arts continued partnership to sustain our operations and aspirations. Their support has allowed us to transcend the recent ravages of monsoons and hurricanes ... while building an inextinguishable bonfire of inspiration for the Marta Beckets of tomorrow.

08/09/2023

Happy 99th Birthday, Marta!! Was that you I saw dancing in the wind today at Death Valley Junction? ... the "dust devil" pirouetting outside the Amargosa Opera House, before taking a bow, back to the infinite blue sky?

12/27/2022

Marta Becket's 55th Anniversary Celebration
Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023
Featuring dance and musical performances
by Donna's Studio of Dance
7 p.m. | Amargosa Opera House I Tickets: $30
To purchase tickets call: 760-852-4441
Post-Show Champagne and Cake Reception: Amargosa Hotel

07/02/2022

The Amargosa Opera House, Death Valley Junction, CA, is honored and thrilled to announce its selection for an inaugural grant from the Ruth Arts Foundation – a new grantmaker dedicated to meeting the evolving needs and lived experiences of artists, communities, and arts organizations. Based in Milwaukee and national in scope, Ruth Arts Foundation aims to reflect the culture and spirit of the Midwest. A responsive and adventurous new force in the realm of arts philanthropy, Ruth Arts distributed its first grants in 2022, providing 78 arts organizations with $1.25 million to date.

"Our selection for this inaugural grant was an astounding surprise!", according to Fred Conboy, President of the Board of Directors, Amargosa Opera House, Inc., "We didn't apply for it; it just fell like manna! Our selection was based solely on nomination by a distinguished New York artist, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, for whom Marta Becket was a lifelong inspiration in her own creative endeavors in the visual arts. Truly, this grant pays tribute to Marta's transformative power to spark and drive creativity in the lives and arts of patrons and artists ... well-beyond the boundaries of Death Valley Junction, CA where Marta made her home from 1967 - 2017, the year she passed." That power is the heart of Marta's legacy and her vision for perpetuating the classical beauty she painted in her beloved Amargosa Opera House, as inscribed in Latin on the golden scroll: "The walls of this theater and I dedicate these murals to the past without which our times would have no beauty".

Conboy confirmed the grant is unrestricted and will be used for the non-profit's most pressing needs for day-to-day operations and arts programming in preserving and promoting the life and legacy of Marta Becket, and the history of Death Valley Junction, CA from its beginning as home of the Pacific Coast Borax Company (1907), and junction for the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad (until WW2)".

To learn more about the Ruth Arts Foundation, please visit:

rutharts.org

12/09/2021

54th Anniversary Celebration & Grand Reopening - Marta Becket's Amargosa Opera House - February 12, 2022 featuring The Sierra Sweethearts and Tribute to Jim Marsh