Amid Breckenridge Ski Resort’s inaugural years, a local boutique owner set off to pique her community’s interest in something other than skiing. Shirley Martin decided she was going to increase the nearly absent presence of theater in this rural mountain town. 

The only feasible way to get that started was by putting on small productions in local bars. 

While casting for a production of “Poor Pitiful Pearl,” which would be put on in Singin’ Sadie’s Saloon downtown, she unknowingly handed the villain role to a young man who would have an integral role in not only piquing the communities interest in theater, but keeping it that way for half a century. 

This year, Breckenridge Backstage Theater is celebrating its past five decades in Breckenridge. Thanks to the work of the villain Martin cast, Allyn Mosher, the theater would go on to become one of Summit’s first nonprofits and one of the first theaters in Colorado to obtain a liquor license, according to theater staff.

Breckenridge Backstage Theater is now revered for being one of the oldest, if not the oldest, year-round theater in Colorado’s Western Slope.

Now at the helm are producing artistic director Jacqueline Stone and creative producer Branden Smith.

Smith said the 50th anniversary has staff focusing more on the timeline of the theater’s history and appreciating the different phases it has gone through as the leadership baton continues to be passed down. He said while the founders laid down the routes, they have always been supportive of each new leadership team taking the theater in the direction they deem fit.

Smith said because of the founder’s views “there’s definitely been a lot of iterations over time and kind of this newest one is pandemic-forward.”

The COVID-19 pandemic stalled the Breckenridge Backstage Theater entirely for over a year, closing its doors from March 2020 until July 2021. The theater came out swinging in its pandemic-forward era, with one of the first shows being put on after the doors reopened snagging three Colorado Theatre Guild awards and six nominations.

Smith said while leadership at the theater has changed, it seems as though the sentiment of the surrounding community hasn’t.

“People have been excited about the theater for a while and built kind of a feeling around it, and the feeling continues,” Smith said.

“The torch has been passed down and it’s never fully gone out,” Smith said. 

Stone said the theater’s mission of entertaining and educating the community hasn’t wavered. In 1979 Mosher and his wife, Joyce, put on the theater’s first educational program for local kids and the trajectory of providing theater opportunities to children hasn’t slowed since. 

In addition to educational theater program opportunities, the theater also partners with Summit County Libraries to use theater as a means to promote literacy. Stone said the theater partners with the library to put early-reader books on stage, among other things to get kids excited and engaged about reading. 

“They’ve just been incredible partners and have the same ridiculous level of excitement around literacy,” Stone said.  

Stone and Smith said two things can be credited with keeping Breckenridge Backstage Theater alive the past 50 years: community partners and fundraisers. The theater is hosting a 50th anniversary fundraiser Aug. 1 at the theater on 121 South Ridge Street. More information can be found BackstageTheatre.org.