Teatro Adolfo Mejía
Republican-era theatre of 1911 on Plaza de la Merced, with tiers of boxes and a painted dome.
Commissioned during the governorship of Henrique Luis Román and designed by the Cartagena architect Luis Felipe Jaspe Franco, the theatre was built within the shell of the abandoned chapel of La Merced and inaugurated on 13 November 1911 as the Teatro Municipal. Jaspe looked to the Teatro Tacón in Havana and the Teatro Reina Emma in Curaçao for the plan. The result is a two-storey republican building with neoclassical detail, its central entrance framed by three semicircular arches on the ground floor.
Inside, stalls and horseshoe tiers of boxes seat about 643 people beneath a shallow painted dome. The house declined during the twentieth century and was closed for a restoration led by the architect Alberto Samudio Trallero that ran from 1987 to 1998; the ceiling was repainted by the Cartagena artist Enrique Grau. It reopened on 31 July 1998, renamed after the composer Adolfo Mejía, and is now run by the city's heritage institute, hosting concerts, drama and screenings for the Cartagena film festival.
Highlights
- Horseshoe auditorium of about 643 seats in stalls and boxes
- Painted dome by the Cartagena artist Enrique Grau
- Built inside the shell of the chapel of La Merced, opened 1911
- Restored 1987–1998 by Alberto Samudio Trallero
