Teatro José Peón Contreras

The Teatro José Peón Contreras stands on Calle 60 at the corner of Calle 57, two blocks north of the Plaza Grande, across from the Parque de la Madre and next to the main building of the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán. Mérida's theater history on this spot goes back to the San Carlos theater of 1806, later called the Teatro Bolio, which took the name of the Yucatecan poet, playwright and doctor José Peón Contreras (1843–1907) in 1878. The present building was begun in December 1900 to a design by the Italian architect Pío Piacentini and built under the direction of the Italian contractor Enrico Deserti, with the façade by Fernando Ceicola and the dome painted by Nicolás Allegretti. The company behind it went broke in 1906, but the theater opened on 21 December 1908 with a benefit concert.

It is a neoclassical building in the French manner, with a main marble staircase, five levels of boxes, Corinthian columns on the proscenium arch and a dome painted with the Greek muses around a chandelier of iridescent cut glass; it seats about 700. Its fortunes followed the city's: it became a cinema in 1940 and was closed in 1974, was declared a historic monument in 1977, reopened in December 1981 and finished a full restoration in 1984. It was a stage for Mérida's year as American Capital of Culture in 2000, has been the home of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Yucatán since 2004, and has a gallery and tourist information in its lobby.

On 1 November 2022 a short circuit in the sound booth on the third floor started a fire that damaged the Allegretti dome fresco, the boxes, the lighting equipment and much of the decorative wood and metalwork. The theater has been closed since then for restoration, and the state culture ministry, SEDECULTA, has said it expects to reopen it in late 2027. Until then you can see the exterior, with its long colonnaded front on Calle 60, and the orchestra and other companies perform at other venues in the city, including the nearby Palacio de la Música.