The Lensic is Santa Fe’s year-round home for the performing arts, offering a variety of performance, education, and community programs to enrich the lives of everyone.
Santa Feans have been gathering at The Lensic since 1931, when it opened its doors as the city’s grandest movie palace and vaudeville stage. Built by local merchant Nathan Salmon and his son-in-law, E. John Greer, the “Spanish-Moorish” style theater was officially dedicated to the people of Santa Fe. After decades as a movie house, The Lensic closed briefly in the late 1990s for a multi-million-dollar renovation project, led by visionaries Nancy and Bill Zeckendorf and supported by the Santa Fe community. With its original beauty restored and state-of-the-art production capabilities added, the theater relaunched in April 2001 as the nonprofit Lensic Performing Arts Center. Today, it’s as magnificent as ever.