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Near the narrow top of Manitou’s Ruxton Avenue at the base of the iconic Manitou Incline sits the Iron Springs Chateau – a two-story dining hall and theater featuring red seats, dark wood and an old-fashioned bar adorned with mounted elk heads and a stuffed grinning black bear – plus 46 prime parking spots that help keep the Chateau’s dinner theater magic alive. Manitou residents Lori and Delores Adams-Miller own the establishment.
Another Manitou local, “Squatchy Tim,” runs the parking lot, eager to help you fit into a tiny mountain parking space and friendly as he collects your cash. But if you’re a guest of the Iron Springs Chateau dinner theater, “Squatchy Tim” helps you park for free.
Local roots of the Iron Springs Chateau run deep. The dinner theater opened in 1960, and Lori began performing there in 1990. Her first role was in a melodrama written by Vicki Kelly and Bruce Littrell, both former owners of the Chateau, called “Honesty Always Wins or This Mine is Mine.”
“Melodramas usually have two titles,” Lori explains. “They all have a heroine, a hero and a villain.”
Local playwright and actor Richard Sebastian-Coleman adds, “The only technical definition of a melodrama is that it’s melodious; music is playing underneath the acting the entire time.”
“And, good always overcomes evil,” Lori says. “Our shows have very big characters, and we have a lot of fun along the way.”
Before Lori and her wife Dolores purchased the Chateau in 2013, Lori says it was for sale for two decades. She remembers that another local writer and choreographer at the time, the late Lynn Ruybalid, would say she had dreams and visions that someday Lori would be an owner of the Chateau.
Our shows have very big characters, and we have a lot of fun along the way. – Lori Adams-Miller
“I would tell Lynn, ‘You must think I have the word crazy written across my forehead,'” Lori laughs.
Today, as co-owner of the Chateau for more than a decade, Lori is part playwright, prop-architect and actress. She is quite literally a woman of many hats – and wardrobes for that matter. Resting on the stage at the top of a dark wooden staircase are a dozen cloaks, coats, button-downs and various other pieces of costume. One gets the feeling Lori has personally worn each of these costume pieces in one show or another.
However, Lori and Delores could not make the Iron Springs Chateau run without the combined efforts of 36 part-time employees including actors, servers, cooks and bussers.
The dinner theater has a special murder mystery premiering Feb. 14, 15 and 16 called “A Brush with Murder.” Written by the aforementioned Richard Sebastian-Coleman, it opens with viewers witnessing an up-and-coming artist, set to introduce his first show (insert drum-roll here) who is mysteriously MURDERED!
Don’t worry, the shows are all kid friendly.
“We welcome audience members from two to 102,” Lori beams.
Richard says he fell into playwrighting after college.
“I wrote a short play for a festival in Colorado Springs in 2017. In 2019, I wrote a play for an off-off-Broadway competition. I didn’t win, but I had my play performed in New York City and that was very, very cool.”
The Iron Springs Chateau proudly features local writers and performers. Following the three-night Valentine’s weekend murder mystery, the Iron Springs Chateau fully opens for the season on March 28 with Lori’s melodrama “Disturbance at the Delta or Here Fishy Fishy Fishy” playing until Aug. 2.
A second show, “Panic at Pikes Peak,” by William Clifton, will alternate with “Disturbance at the Delta or Here Fishy Fishy Fishy” until the season closes with showings of Monty Python cult classics.
“We try to make people laugh,” Lori shares. “It’s powerful to make people cry. It is so much better, though, to make them laugh.”
Though it is a dinner theater, Iron Springs Chateau guests are not required to eat dinner. Attendees may purchase individual theater tickets if they simply want to see a show.
The Chateau’s three-course dinner begins with salad, a choice of pot roast, chicken or vegetarian option and sides served family-style. Dinner ends with a fresh fruit cobbler for dessert. Doors to the upstairs theater open at 7 p.m.; showtime is 7:30. More information and tickets available at IronSpringsChateau.com.
