Under the Texas Sky

A flourishing theatre scene strives for recognition deep in the heart of Texas.

By Sarah Hart

With its trackless highways that disappear into a never-ending expanse of sky, North Texas lives up to its state’s unspoken motto: “everything enormous.” The region’s flagship city, Dallas, crowns itself supersize king with the nickname “Big D.” Big business, big sports, big personalities: In this competitive, push-the-envelope setting it’s difficult to imagine that even big theatres—let alone their smaller, scrappier counterparts—can thrive. Indeed, it’s not hard to find North Texans who aren’t even aware that theatre exists here. But the fact is that Dallas, along with her next-door neighbor to the west, Fort Worth (the two grow closer by the day, creating an overlapping metroplex), are companion cities rife with arts and culture, including a vibrant and varied theatre scene supported by a committed public—and ripe for discovery by those not yet cued in to its potential rewards. 

The Dallas Chamber of Commerce estimates that there are 36 professional and community theatres in the city alone—yet Dallas still resists a reputation as a theatre town. To be sure, the business of competing with Texas priorities and ducking Texas stereotypes takes a toll on dramatic life here. It’s hard, artists say, to be heard above the din—above sports and local politics and presidential flybys. Editors don’t treat theatre as news, bemoan others, citing the lack of press coverage in both cities as a debilitating evil. Funding options (Texas ranks dead last in state support for the arts) fall prey to theatre’s below-the-radar status when businesses or corporations want to affix their monikers to big things—for theatres are not big places that provide big exposure. Geography undermines the life of the theatre here, too: The D/FW metroplex sprawls over 1,500 square miles, and the necessity of driving depletes the energy of an urban theatre scene.

But what intensely loyal and intrepid arts-seekers find when they do venture beneath the hullabaloo is a healthy range of theatre artists prepared to offer everything from large-scale, energy-infused musicals to edgy, unpredictable, uncategorizeable performance. On a given Saturday in October I could choose among classic comedy (You Can’t Take It with You), classic fringe (Beckett’s Happy Days), classic Texas (The Best Little Whorehouse…), several new works, Shakespeare and more. (My choice, Happy Days at Dallas’s Kitchen Dog Theater, was an acting tour de force to rival anything I’ve seen in the past year, New York theatre-going included.)

Anyone who has studied regional theatre history should know that Dallas boasts quite a pedigree: Margo Jones opened Theatre ’47, her prototype for the modern nonprofit professional theatre, here in 1947. Long before that, Dallas Little Theatre had snagged national attention as the twice-named “Best Little Theatre in the United States.” So it was in a theatre-rich environment that today’s theatrical landmarks arrived. Dallas Theater Center unveiled its Frank Lloyd Wright­designed Kalita Humphreys Theatre in 1959, conceived as a theatre dedicated to both education and production, under the direction of Paul Baker. The arrival of Theatre Three followed 16 months later, and that purely professional venture remains under the direction of its co-founder, Jac Alder. In 1971, Bob Glenn founded the Dallas Shakespeare Festival—now the second oldest outdoor free Shakespeare festival—and showcased the talents of rising local artists like Raphael Parry, Katherine Owens and Dan Day.

Fast-forward to the ’80s when countless theatres exploded onto the scene, with professional models developing alongside energetic, come-as-you-are community theatres located in the suburbs—theatres that, in many cases, went on to reinvent themselves as professional entities. In the midst of this growth, DTC, in those years under the dynamic direction of Adrian Hall, constructed a new theatre and built a strong resident acting company. Theatre Three—now offering a diet of comedy by the likes of Stephen Sondheim, Alan Ayckbourn and Christopher Durang—proclaimed its stability by buying the building it had rented in Dallas’s developing uptown neighborhood. 

Beyond these more mainstream establishments, new theatres began to fill cultural and community voids. Dallas Children’s Theater emerged under the leadership of Robyn Flatt in 1984 and has since tallied a long list of education-enriching projects, as well as creating challenging productions for both young children and teenagers. The same year, Raphael Parry and Katherine Owens joined forces to open Undermain Theatre in Dallas’s hip Deep Ellum neighborhood. With its devoted relationship to fringe playwrights like John O’Keefe, Erik Ehn and Mac Wellman, Undermain seeded the ground for Dallas as a writer-friendly town. The next year saw the advent of the Latino company Teatro Dallas. Founder Cora Cardona worked against the grain to convince her community that a theatre of its own was essential—but she prevailed, eventually instituting a theatre that embraced the many heritages encompassed by Latino-American culture.

At the tail end of the growth spurt came Kitchen Dog Theater, founded in 1989 by Dan Day and fellow Southern Methodist University graduates. After three itinerant years—when the Undermain served as guardian angel—the theatre lucked into the enviable mixed-use art space it now inhabits at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary, an arts center in uptown Dallas, walking distance—if Dallas were a walking city—from DTC in one direction and Theatre Three in the other. With two theatres, two large galleries, a sweeping reception area and office space to boot, the MAC proved the secret to Kitchen Dog’s endurance when so many of that period’s theatres folded. Today the company boasts a steady repertoire of Beckett, David Mamet, Sam Shepard and its own company-developed work, like the recent bio-play Barbette.

If Dallas takes the prize for all things big, Fort Worth has refused to bow to—or to imitate—her cosmopolitan neighbor’s monolithic stature. With a wary eye on the innovation and modernity flooding into Dallas, Fort Worth has preserved her Old West soul and, with it, a unique cultural voice. If cowboys were what they had in Fort Worth, then they would make art from cowboys—and the town has done so in its architecture, its museums and its theatre. Philanthropic giving has funded a small but significant arts scene in Fort Worth, and the city has cultivated a distinct theatre presence in downtown’s Sundance (think Butch Cassidy) Square, where the gilded angels of Bass Performance Hall look over stalwarts like Jubilee Theatre, an African-American company, and Circle Theatre, which devotes itself to contemporary work rarely seen in the community. Leaders of these and other Fort Worth theatres cut their teeth on regional stages, learning their craft—and their business—well. Fort Worth Community Theatre (which later dropped its community status) opened its doors in 1955 and saw Jerry Russell (who founded Stage West in 1978), Rudy Eastman (Jubilee, 1981) and Rose Pearson (Circle, 1985) all march across its boards during its 1960s­’70s heyday. Casa Mañana introduced musicals-in-the-round in 1958 and gave on-and-off actor Johnny Simons something to rebel against when he founded Hip Pocket Theatre in 1976. 

A tenacity that just might be a Texas trademark enabled most of these “youngsters” to get their starts. “No just means not yet,” says Pearson of those grappling-for-resources years. What surprises her is that, for all their gypsy, grassroots beginnings, these are the theatres—Stage West, Jubilee and Circle—that are now secure, while the one-time bastions falter. “I guess we’re old and respected now,” she says—and her colleagues confirm this. At a time when many nonprofit theatres are feeling the brunt of the economic slump, Eastman jubilantly relates that Jubilee’s last season was its most successful ever, thanks in part to the original money-maker Alice Wonder, by Eastman and Joe Rogers. And though Stage West lost its partner, Fort Worth’s Shakespeare in the Park, to lack of funds last summer, artistic director Jim Covault cautiously reports good subscriber renewal for the current season. 
“There’s one of almost everything in Fort Worth,” claims Eastman. “The one thing missing is a strong Hispanic theatre, but that will come in time.” The Jubilee offers a play list that swings from what Eastman calls “meat-and-potatoes black theatre” (this season will offer Raisin in the Sun) to revisionist classics (Brother Mac plunks Macbeth into Black Panther headquarters) to the even more experimental “southern-fried Ionesco”­style shows that Eastman frequently pens himself. Such diversity feeds Fort Worth’s fluctuating audience, which Covault compares to a pendulum swinging between the desire for adventurous and conservative work. “You never know what they’ll want,” he concludes ruefully. “We have great success with plays we think wouldn’t work, and vice versa.”

One unmatched treasure in Fort Worth is the outdoor playground of Hip Pocket Theatre. Fed up with performing musicals and Neil Simon in the ’70s, Johnny Simons joined with his wife Diane and friend Douglas Valentine to present their own kind of theatre. They found the place—five acres near Lake Worth marked with nothing but a four-by-eight-foot platform—and launched into a history of Fort Worth called Cowtown. “People came to see it,” says Johnny Simons, “and they didn’t throw things. So we tried another.” The present state of the stage—a tangled collage of wooden planks that spiral outward at ungainly angles, all but obscuring the original platform—speaks volumes to the company’s creative output since. “Theatre should be deeply personal,” says Simons. “I reluctantly see other plays only if my children are in them.” One of his daughters, Lorca—who, like her sister Lake, grew up to become an actress—recently lured the Simonses inside theatre walls when she returned from New York to appear in Of Mice and Men at DTC. 

Dallas Theater Center’s Richard Hamburger, artistic director for the last 10 years, likens the Dallas metroplex theatre scene in the ’80s to that of Seattle’s today. “This was a Southwestern center for actors to come and live,” he says. “Regrettably, that’s no longer true. So many theatres have dried up and closed.” For area performer and theatre educator Fred Curchack, it was the disintegration of DTC’s resident company in the interim years between Hall and Hamburger that changed the landscape of Dallas as a theatre city. “The most talented actors had no choice but to leave,” he says. Though the metroplex population swelled in the past decade (Dallas/Fort Worth is currently the ninth largest metropolitan area in the U.S. and projections indicate that by 2010 it will be the fourth largest), the theatre scene seemed to dwindle—or at least go into hiding. Big spectacle venues, like Dallas Summer Musicals and Casa Mañana, shifted their emphasis from mounting their own shows to hosting Broadway touring companies. Dependable margin types, like Dallas’s champion-of-the-underdog Undermain, tapered off their local production activity. And imposing new performance halls, like Fort Worth’s opulant Bass Hall, cast shadows over the less-glamorous nonprofits.

But there is evidence that a new era of theatre-birthing may be dawning. And, if a new wave of fledgling theatre companies manages to take root and survive, metroplex theatre will find itself home to a younger, hipper, more connected scene. “There’s a wave of talent and people coming into the area,” says Terry Martin, who took over the artistic reins of WaterTower Theatre in Addison (a suburb all but engulfed by Dallas’s northern expansion) in 1999. “I think a lot of old guards are having to move over a little because these young people are coming on board. This not only brings in a new energy that has perhaps been missing, but it challenges the established theatres to raise the bar in terms of the work that they’re doing and the way they involve the local community.” Youth has headlined even at seasoned theatres like DTC, which has produced up-and-coming playwrights like Annie Weisman, Karen Hartman and Lynn Nottage in the past few years. This spreading vitality has also welcomed back the prodigal Undermain, which this fall presented Moira Buffini’s medieval-era Silence, the company’s first Dallas-housed production in a year.

Perhaps the greatest harbinger of a new order has been the breakaway success of the Festival of Independent Theatres (FIT), now prepping for its fifth consecutive year at Dallas’s Bath House Cultural Center, an art deco one-time bathhouse on the banks of White Rock Lake, now active as a city-funded performance and gallery space. David Fisher, the center’s manager of seven years, observed the myriad theatre groups using the Bath House and envisioned a way for them to pool their strengths and stretch their artistic wings on work that wouldn’t owe its livelihood to box-office success. With funding from Dallas’s Office of Cultural Affairs and co-producing help from Beardsley Living Theatre (Brenda and Michael Galgan, artistic directors), Fisher offered a $500 stipend to seven companies for one-acts to be performed over three weekends. By its second year, FIT’s “cool” factor soared and it was dubbed a “must-see theatre event” by local press. The festival has added more companies to the mix and ended up with an array of Dallas’s brightest, if not steadiest, young theatre groups, including such special-interest companies as Echo Theatre (which performs works by women), Bucket Productions (which devotes itself to classics) and Teatro offspring Cara Mia.

“This is one of the best ways to spend city money,” says Fisher, “to foster the growth of these companies.” Indeed, in addition to publicity, audience-building and a cut of the box office, FIT’s participants have found an invaluable community. “Before the festival, we might not have even seen each other’s shows,” says Pam Myers-Morgan, artistic director of Echo Theatre. “Now we understand how each other works, we’re pulling for the same goal, we’re fed by one another.” More tangibly, these theatres are sharing mailing lists, crew and e-mails querying, “Does anybody have a…?”

Cooperation and communication between many of the theatres in Dallas, however, is still at an impasse. Like any theatre place, Dallas has grappled with the very real—and sometimes ugly—monster of competition in a town where theatre never gets enough support. As they struggle for audience members, actors and funding on the home front, theatres have often been more likely to tap into a national—or international—community than forge bonds with neighboring (and rival) colleagues. But recently area artists have begun to forcefully articulate reasons why theatres should not be in competition with one another. Theatre Three’s Jac Alder and DTC’s Hamburger, positioned as they are at the two oldest, most established theatres in Dallas, seem poised to push the theatre community in the direction being taken by FIT. Alder ruminates on cooperative ventures such as common shops and storage space (“Not everyone should have to own a Victorian couch,” he says with complete earnestness), while Hamburger hopes for more advocacy work, a half-price ticket system or even simply “getting together and talking about how to make this a theatre town.” 

“Too much theatre, not enough space” is never articulated in quite such blunt terms, but almost every artist cites artistic homelessness as a pertinent problem. “Dallas is obsessed with the new,” says Kitchen Dog artistic director Dan Day, “so all old spaces, like warehouses, are torn down.” As if to prove arts institutions can keep up with the new, two Dallas theatres will soon unveil new facilities: Dallas Children’s Theater plans to move this month into a renovated bowling alley with a mainstage theatre named for Texas theatre legend—and DCT founder Robyn Flatt’s father—Paul Baker (the culmination of an $8.6-million capital campaign), while DTC will add a third theatre to its holdings. (Following in the legacy of the Wright building, the new space will be designed by Rem Koolhaas—who will also collaborate with Hamburger on this season’s Big Love.) But the lack of run-down, cheap-rent buildings slows the progress—or speeds the demise—of unfunded troupes. 

The few atmospheric sanctuaries still standing, like the Bath House and the Addison Conference and Theatre Center (a converted water tower that is the permanent home, needless to say, of WaterTower Theatre), are some of the most coveted performance spaces in town. But other arts centers, especially in the between-city suburbs, have made a concerted effort to open their doors: Irving, a business-heavy suburb of Dallas, for example, offers Trinity River Arts Center, which also houses TFM Productions as its resident company; and Irving Arts Center, permanent home to Lyric Stage and Irving Community Theater. 

Festivals can capitalize off “lots of theatre, very little space,” and this year will see an influx of such events with the return of Dallas Theater Center’s Big D Festival of the Unexpected, in April, after a two-year hiatus and, in February, Teatro Dallas’s International Festival, which recently took a year off due to travel and visa complications. DTC’s Unexpected—produced by Melissa Cooper, artistic associate at DTC and Hamburger’s wife—took flight in 1993 and, on a semi-biannual basis, presents an artist-driven festival of new work from the likes of Octavio Solis, Chay Yew and Suzan-Lori Parks. Area educator and performer Curchack, who laments the insularity he sees in Dallas theatre, calls the festival a remedy: “a super-vital, world-class incubator of new work.” Teatro expands the horizons still farther, attracting a smorgasbord of international talent, with several countries represented each year (the first year, 1994, brought Italy and Russia in addition to a heavy sampling of Latino work). “Identity is our eternal issue,” says Cardona. “We need to see pluralistic cultures. It’s just like food, I guess.” High off their inaugural festival’s success, WaterTower Theatre will reprise its Out of the Loop Festival in March, and, of course, this summer the Bath House will triumphantly carry out its fifth Festival of Independent Theatres. 

Paradoxically, in Fort Worth, where theatre artists do enjoy more of a community (its Live Theatre League regularly socializes over bowling tournaments and has issued an unanswered challenge to the Dallas Theatre League), a common arts space for homeless groups doesn’t exist. While small companies find exotic spaces to temporarily call home (the now-defunct MoonWater used an old movie theatre; Sage & Silo Theatre recently moved to the county outskirts to perform at the Ranch in Saginaw), staying power is intrinsically linked with a roof—or at least the promise of a roof. But remedy may be on the way: In Fort Worth’s museum district, the Modern Art Museum recently moved into an updated space, leaving its old edifice empty. Rumor has it that at least part of the building—which forms a triangle with the Amon Carter Museum and the internationally renowned Kimball Art Museum—will be converted into a city-funded black-box space. This may serve as the impetus for a Fort Worth explosion of theatre-birthing—or the incentive for youthful groups, like the ambitious Amphibian Players, which splits its performance schedule with New York, to stick around.

Artistic abandonment poses a pressing conundrum for both cities as theatres watch their best actors be seduced by the promise of work on the East and West Coasts. “Drama schools haven’t been clever at integrating their students with regional theatre needs,” says Alder. “I hate to see that dislocation.” Thinking along the same lines, Kitchen Dog recently presented a co-production of King Lear with Southern Methodist University in an attempt to offer students an alternative future to the glossy New York/Los Angeles packages marketed by the academic program. But a tight core of passionate artists—mostly actors—does remain in Dallas and Fort Worth.

In some ways the metroplex is a great place for artists to roost: The cost of living is low, the quality of life high. There are a variety of theatres producing all sorts of work—but, as is ever the case, even when artists are getting paid, it’s barely enough to squeak by. “We’ve found a way to have a high-quality, low-cost lifestyle and do work that’s important,” says Echo Theatre’s Myers-Morgan, “but I’m cobbling rent from 14 different jobs.” Sensitive to the needs of the artistic community—and her theatre’s position as one of the largest, most stable entities—Robyn Flatt has made a crusade of her efforts to employ artists on the staff of Dallas Children’s Theater to keep them in the area and financially afloat. “Artists are quite capable of managing,” she says. “It gives us control to create our own world.” In the end, it may be the abundance of small theatres that keeps freelance artists in town. “The larger theatres can’t exist without the smaller companies,” says Elizabeth Ware, artistic director of Core Performance Manufactory, a small theatre with experimental focus. “Without them there wouldn’t be any intermediate work and everyone would leave.”

“I think this coming year will be the turning point,” says Stage West’s Jim Covault. “But there are a lot of unknowns.” Dallas and Fort Worth may indeed be ready to come into their own and earn their due theatrical reputations. “I think we have Chicago’s potential to be a cultural destination,” says Hamburger. “I think Dallas secretly takes chances, but doesn’t admit it. Angels in America was our biggest ticket-seller ever—except for A Christmas Carol. There’s an unpretentious energy here that’s great for theatre. Texans can’t stand pretension—and they tell you what they think. It’s a seductive, lively audience.”

© - 2006 by Theatre Communications Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.