Theatres in Latin America have always been actors in the development of arts, culture, and society, and Chile is not the exception. Although the rise of theatres occurred in the middle of the 19th century, it is from the early 20th that they started to be spread through the whole country, while their decline occurred in the last quarter of this century. In this research, we assess the development of theatres and their different dimensions in Melipilla - a prototypical midrange city located in the central Chile-and reconstruct the historical path and disappearance of theatres on its social aspects. The main thesis suggests that, beyond exogenous factors - those relating to ample processes of social change at the global or national scale-, were endogenous causes, such as the lack of citizen empowerment, the managerial-centered administration of theatres and the increasing rigidity of their management, which explain the roots of their decline and later disappearance.