Aurora Fox Arts Center

I am interetsted in finding out how one goes about renting this theater???

The Aurora Fox Center Theatre is located at 9900 E. Colfax Ave., Aurora , CO, 80010. The phone numbers are (303) 361-2910 , (303) 361-2909 fax. e-mail info: recreation@auroragov.org

The Fox Aurora Theatre seated 673 people when it was a movie theatre.

The Fox Theatre opened in 1946. It had run continously since opening but by the 70's the Fox was in disrepair. In 1981 a fire caused the Fox to close and seemed it was on the road to demolishion but the front section and the facade were spared. A new auditorium was built in a quonsut hut style replacing the old one. The original front facade has been rstored and the marquee and the 61' verticle are now in use again. Once an anchor as a movie theatre in downtown Aurora, the Aurora Fox Arts Center is now again an anchor.

Is this the theater that is a quonset hut?

The new auditorium that replaced the one destroyed by fire in 1981 is a quonset hut style.

I'm now living in Southern California, but I grew up in Denver, and the Fox was one of the theaters my mom used to keep in her movie rotation. It was either the Bluebird, The Ogden Theater, the Mayan Theater and the Gothic. All these were great movie houses. I can't recall how many times my brother and I used to go see movies at the Fox. It was a great theater, and during Halloween, the mangement would offer a "spook night," and show horror movies from midnight till 3 a.m. Great memories.

Nice color photo of the Aurora Fox Arts Center.
http://www.agilitynut.com/p/colft904.jpg

Aurora Fox Arts Center
Address: 9900 E Colfax Ave
Phone: 303.361.2910

Description: Named Best Season for a Local Theatre Company (Westword, Best of Denver, June 29, 2000), the Aurora Fox Arts Center offers an array of entertainment for all ages. Call the box office for a schedule, rates and subscriber information. Plays, Musicals, Children's Theater, Concerts, Guest Artists Performing Arts Classes, including Young Actor's Workshop Discounts available for students, season subscribers and groups

I saw several plays at this theater, and a nice Alfred Hitchcock festivale here to!

"Quonset huts" were a WW2 invention, prefabricated steel structures built in ever-expanding domed hemispherical sections. In the immediate aftermath of the war they were an obvious way for enterprising ex-servicemen to start up businesses, and neighborhood movie theatres, then, seemed like a hot idea. How the Aurora house got to be a "Fox" house, though, suggests that Hollywood might have been thinking in such terms as well. Any thoughts, Mr. O'Malley?

Here's the official website of the Aurora Fox.

It says (among other things) that the theatre was designed by Denver architect Charles Strong; was operated by the Fox Intermountain Amusement Company; was opened on October 30, 1946; closed as movie theatre following a fire on November 18, 1981; was renovated for use as an arts center in 1984. It also says that the original auditorium was, like its replacement, a quonset structure.

Quite a few quonset-style theatres were built in the late 1940s. I know of three that were built in the San Gabriel Valley area est of Los Angeles alone: Clarence J. Smale's Colorado Theatrein Pasadena, and S. Charles Lee's Star Theatre in La Puente and Garmar Theatre in Montebello. Cinema Treasures currently lists 47 theatres as being in quonsets (the Aurora Fox is not yet on the list, by the way), and is probably missing about as many.

Photos of the Fox appear on page 271 of the November 15, 1947, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The original auditorium, like its replacement, was a quonset structure, but Charles D. Strong's designs for the facade and decoration were all decidedly Moderne.

That comment should read page 265, which is page 23 of the Modern Theatre section. There are two additional photos on the following page. Issuu renumbers the pages for the digital version.

Here is a 1984 photo of the Fox Theater.

Here are some recent photos:

Photo1

Photo2

Photo3

Photo4