[1] Outdoor locations for pageants and festivals grew in popularity on college campuses in the United States during the 1910s and 1920s.

[2] The Des Moines Garden Club had C.A Baughman from the same firm draw up detailed plans for Greenwood Park.

The seats for the audience faced west, the stage was located near the foot of a swale and a hill with trees would provide a natural backdrop.

Des Moines landscape architect Francis Asbury Robinson finalized the details and the theater was constructed in 1931.

They were replaced in 1934 with benches made of wood slats with a back that were mounted in wrought iron frames.

There was also a small frame structure in the back of the seating area that was used as a projection booth for films.

The Des Moines Civic Opera Association presented the operetta The Flower of Venice in 1937.

The years after the war saw the movement from the city to the suburbs and the rise of television as a form of entertainment.

The first three rows of seating were removed in 1989 because the reflecting pool silted in and the elevation of the land around it was raised.

The theater is a natural land element formed by the slopes of a hill on either side of a creek.

The second element is the theater proper, which includes the stage, seating, spectator circulation network, lighting, and entrance steps.

[2] The spectator circulation network is composed of a series of aisles that flank the four seating sections.

[2] There is a concrete gutter on the ground that surrounds the building and directs rain water down the hill.