As I hope you know Culebrón is a part of Pinoso and Pinoso has a population of about 8,500. In the English countryside Pinoso would be no more than a village but here it's definitely a town - probably because it provides town like services. One of those services is a theatre, the frequently used Auditorio Emilio Martínez Sáez. Settlements even smaller than Pinoso boast a theatre. Nearby Algueña (1300 people) and Salinas (1600) both have theatres and so (obviously) does Abanilla with over 6,000 people. It's something that seems to be almost taken for granted in Spain.
The theatres are all different but I'm optimistically going to see similarities and categories. Pinoso's theatre is a style much like the Teatro Cervantes in Petrer. Reasonably modern with quite a lot of wood panelling and fairly comfy seating. These venues often look as though refurb time is fast approaching. Then there are the theatres that have a bit grander design - stalls, dress circle, boxes and sometimes even gods. Examples here would be the Castelar over in Elda, the Principal in Monóvar or the Wagner down in Aspe. My favourites though are the plush velvet and gold leaf theatres lit with a sumptuous golden light; the ones with ceiling murals, with chandeliers and with the full panoply of stalls, boxes, upper and dress circles. The Chapí in Villena, the Vico in Jumilla, the Concha Segura in Yecla, the Principal in Alicante, the Gran Teatro in Elche and the Romea in Murcia all fall into this class. Strangely the last couple of places we've been to have been new to us and both have been modern. The Calderón in Alcoy was very swish, very modern, very comfy and the ADDA (Auditorio de la Diputación de Alicante) in Alicante was a bit of an eye opener to a country bumpkin like me. Much grander than most of our habitual haunts but all white, all synthetic materials, all wide open spaces. Built in 2011 it reminded me of the Palau de les Arts in the City of Art and Science up in Valencia but, as it wasn't designed by Santiago Calatrava, bits weren't falling off as we sat there!
It's surprisingly easy to book up events in these theatres nowadays. In the past it was often a pain - phone calls, box office pickups and approved agents with tickets. It's still sometimes the case. In the summer I had to go to a book shop in Novelda to buy tickets for a musical in the Cultural Centre in the town and, back in September, we chose to go to Yecla and stand in a queue to get first dibs on the seats for the Jazz Festival. If we'd waited for the Internet sale to open the next day we wouldn't have got the seats we wanted. Generally though the ticket platforms now make it cakelike. For the great majority of the theatres (and other venues around here) Instanticket is the most common platform, though some places use different ticket agencies. Prices vary. In the paraninfo of the University of Alicante (which isn't really a theatre) or in municipal theatres (like Pinoso) the performances are often free or a few Euros. In commercial theatres the prices reflect the cost of staging the event - opera tickets are more expensive than ones for a string quartet for instance. I expect to pay somewhere in the teens, sometimes in the mid twenties and I baulk at anything over 30 unless I'm dead keen.
Should you decide to give it a go, and you haven't before, I can't really help with the nomenclature of the bits of a theatre. I thought it was pretty simple, Patio de Butacas for the stalls, the seats lined up on the ground floor facing the stage. Anfiteatro was the first floor circle, again facing the stage but one floor up and with tiered seating. Another floor up, with your head against the ceiling, el Paraiso, the Gods usually called the chicken coop, el gallinero, by we hoi polloi. Along the side walls, so you have to look obliquely to see the stage, are the Palcos, the boxes. There's usually no problem with buying just a couple of seats in a box. I was also told, at the Concha Segura in Yecla, that the boxes that are at the same level as the stage, a little above the stalls, are called plateas but I've just been looking at the Instanticket diagrams of the theatres and every one seems to use variations of the name. It's all very graphic though, on all of the ticketing sites, so it's easy to work out. Knowing that Escenario is the stage you just decide whether you want to look up to the stage, down to the stage, straight on to the stage or obliquely to the stage then check the availability and the prices.
When I did the tour of the Wagner in Aspe we were told that they had never sold all the seats for any performance, that there were always unsold seats dotted here and there even for the most popular events. The ticket selling sites may say the theatre is sold out but it's not, apparently, quite true. This is because there is both national and regional legislation about how tickets should be sold. Here in Valencia 5% of tickets have to be held back to be sold at performance time from the box office.
And if you don't fancy a performance most of the theatres do guided tours from time to time. The Teatro Chapí, named for a Villena born composer of the very traditionally Spanish opera form called zarzuela, for example does a visit one Sunday each month. As with nearly anything that involves a guided tour, from castles and museums to old air raid shelters the tourist offices are the place to ask.
