Desert Star Theater, Art Moderne movie theater in Murray, United States
The Desert Star Theater is a movie and stage theater built in the Art Moderne style in Murray, Utah. The building has a full auditorium where guests are served dinner at their seats during performances.
The building opened in 1930 as the Gem Theater, serving the local community as a movie house from the start. It was later renamed and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
The Desert Star Theater is known for staging comedy musicals that draw heavily on Utah life and local humor. Each show ends with a short musical segment called an olio, which the cast performs as a lively finale.
The theater sits on State Street in Murray, where parking nearby is easy to find. Arriving a little early is a good idea since dinner and the show are combined, and seating fills up before the performance starts.
During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the theater accepted scrap metal from children as payment when families had no cash. Kids in the neighborhood would collect old metal to trade for a ticket, making the cinema accessible even in the hardest times.
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