Teatro Tapia

The Teatro Tapia, in Puerto Rico is likely to oldest free-standing drama stage building still in use in the United States. Facing east, across from Plaza de Colon, on Fortaleza street, and built starting about 1824. It was designed in the Italian style as a horseshoe shaped opera house with three tiers of boxes. For over one hundred years since it was built it was the center of cultural life in the city. Famous soprano, Adelina Patti sang there in one of her earlier tours of the Americas during the mid nineteenth century. Other notable performers to have graced its stage include the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. After some years of neglect during the forties, however, when demolition was even considered, former Mayor of San Juan, Felisa Rincón (served from 1946 to 1969) pushed to save the theater. It was restored in the late forties and has subsequently been continuously used to provide musical theater, drama and other cultural events. The interior audience hall is remarkable for the period-copies of wood chairs and its three tiers of boxes. Susequent restorations (in 1976 and 1997) returned its old charm. A block south lies a brick-shaped original casa de carreteros; house of road-maintainers. To the North-east lie a string of cultural institutions: the restored Casino de Puerto Rico, the YMCA, the Carnegie library, the Ateneo de Puerto Rico, and Moorish-inspired Casa de Espana. In the North seaward cliff, sprawls the historic and labyrinthine fort of San Cristobal. The original landward gate of old San Juan lay just east of this site on Calle Fortaleza. It is named after the poet and dramatist Alejandro Tapia y Rivera (1826-1882).

With a capacity to hold 700 people, this 19th century theater serves as an arena for cultural events and enchanting ballet performances and is an ideal spot for meetings and presentations.