Four years ago, a newly formed theater company borrowed the Washoe Theatre for a weekend, performed a 1938 radio drama to about 150 people, and hoped it might be the start of something. This October, that same script is back on an Anaconda stage. But the company performing it now books its own venue, pays its cast, and needs two weekends instead of one to get through the run.
If you caught Anaconda Ensemble Theatre's debut back in September 2022, you might assume this fall is a rerun in the literal sense. It is the same title, the same source material, the same founder at the helm. What's changed is the size of the operation around it, and that's the part worth paying attention to if you live here and want to know whether this town's cultural calendar is actually building on itself or just repeating.
What Two Performances Looked Like in 2022
Jackie Vetter had spent years at Butte's Orphan Girl Theatre before she set out to build something of her own in Anaconda. Her first production as the newly formed Anaconda Ensemble Theatre was "War of the Worlds," staged as a hybrid radio play inside the Washoe Theatre, a Depression-era auditorium regarded as one of the best-preserved movie palaces in the country. There were two showings that weekend, Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m., and the run drew roughly 150 people total. At the time, Vetter described her goal plainly: she wanted to give people a forum to perform and build an artistic home in Anaconda, not just put on a single show and see what happened.
That's a modest ambition to state out loud in public, especially for a company with no venue of its own and no track record yet. Four years later, it reads less like a hope and more like a plan that worked.
The Same Script, a Very Different Run
This year's production runs across back-to-back weekends, October 2 through 4 and October 9 through 11, at The Montana Hotel in Anaconda. That's five performances instead of two, spread across two weekends instead of one, and every role in the cast is paid. This time around, Vetter is directing and producing with Emily Branch of Missoula co-directing, Kai Jackman of Anaconda running stage and lights, Zachary Walsh of San Antonio designing sound, and Karlee Jane of Butte handling costumes.
That's a production team pulling talent from three different towns and one out-of-state hire, for a show that started as one local founder's first attempt to see if Anaconda wanted a theater company at all. The venue change matters too. The Washoe Theatre was a borrowed stage for a debut. The Montana Hotel booking for a two-weekend run is closer to what an established company does when it knows it has an audience to fill seats for longer.
Here's the shape of that growth side by side:
| 2022 Debut | 2026 Run | |
|---|---|---|
| Venue | Washoe Theatre (borrowed) | The Montana Hotel |
| Performances | 2 (single weekend) | 5 (two weekends) |
| Cast/crew hometowns | Primarily local | Anaconda, Butte, Missoula, San Antonio |
| Roles | Volunteer | Paid |
"I really want to give people a forum to be able to perform and have an artistic home here in Anaconda."
That's what Vetter said back when the company was two performances old. It's worth sitting with now that the company is booking a hotel for a two-weekend run with a paid, multi-town crew.
It's Not Just the Theater
The theater's growth would be a nice, isolated story if it were the only thing in Anaconda expanding its footprint this fall. It isn't.
Copper Village Museum and Art Center's Wildlife Art Expo kicks off Friday, September 18, with a gallery walk that runs artists' work through ten different venues across downtown Anaconda in a single evening, before the reception moves to the museum itself for a meet and greet hosted by Glacier Bank. Featured artist Valeria Yost joins more than 40 other exhibitors this year, with the weekend closing out at the Elks on Main Street for a dinner gala and auction. Ten venues in one night is not a small ask logistically. It means downtown storefronts, not just the museum, are opening their doors as gallery space for a weekend.
The Old Works Oktoberfest Golf Tournament tees off Saturday, October 3, and its stated purpose is blunt about what it's actually for: supporting the growth and economic development of Anaconda. That framing is unusual for a golf tournament, but it fits a course that was itself built as a reclamation project, laid out over the old copper smelter site with black slag from the mining operation filling its bunkers. A charity tournament on ground like that isn't just an autumn tee time. It's the town's golf course explicitly functioning as an economic development tool, not just recreation.
The D'Fenders Car Show is on September 19; later, on October 17, the Anaconda Trail Society and Discovery Bike Park run 6 Hours of Disco, an endurance mountain bike race through the Echo Lake trails that finishes at the base of Discovery Ski Area. It draws a mix of serious racers, costumed casual riders, and spectators content to sit in camping chairs and heckle for six hours. October in the Pintlers means the weather rarely cooperates for the full stretch, which locals who've ridden it before will tell you is part of the appeal.
None of these events are brand new ideas. What's notable is that several of the organizations behind them, the theater company, the museum, the trail society, are each pushing their own programming a little further than they did the year before. That's a different story than a town simply running the same five events on a loop every fall.
Where the Weekend Actually Happens
If you're building a weekend around any of this, the town gives you enough to work with before and after. Smelter City Brewing operates out of a repurposed historic bank building downtown, with a patio for anyone who wants to sit outside between gallery stops during the Wildlife Art Expo weekend. Jordi's Cantina runs a Saturday special worth timing a dinner around, smoky brisket tacos with two sides for $14, alongside a $3 house margarita, and it gets lively enough on weekend nights that calling ahead for a bar seat isn't a bad idea. Gallicano's Pizzeria is the easier stop if you want something quick and casual after the car show, thin crust and a counter that moves fast. For a nightcap after a theater run at The Montana Hotel, Harp & Thistle down the street is the kind of live-music bar where nobody's in a hurry to close out a tab.
What This Fall Actually Tells You
None of this changes what Anaconda is. It's still a small town in the Pintlers that people who live here already know how to navigate. What's changed is that several of its institutions are no longer just maintaining what they built last year. They're expanding it, whether that's a theater company doubling its run length and paying its cast, or a golf tournament stating outright that it exists to fund the town's own growth.
If you've lived here through a few of these autumns already, that's the pattern worth watching for as the calendar fills back in every September. The lineup looks familiar on the surface. What each organization is doing with it isn't standing still.
If you're weighing a move to Southwest Montana yourself and want a read on what a town like Anaconda actually offers day to day, not just on a listing sheet, Joszie and Jason Driear at Treasure State Brokers know this ground because they work it. Get in touch when you're ready to talk specifics.
