*Announcing the 49th season!Play outside the lines with us!***

Tickets on sale soon!

And now, onto the 49th!

We are grateful to our theatre loving community for all your support; whether onstage or backstage, in the audience or in another part of the world, your appreciation and understanding of how special and vital Hip Pocket Theatre is fuels our collective hearts and keeps us going strong!

In 2025 , we look back and honor the brilliant artistic minds that founded Hip Pocket 48 years ago. Thank you to Johnny and Diane Simons and Douglas Balentine for creating Hip Pocket! Their passionate vision of what theatre could be and should be propels us forward! We take a big deep breath as we look ahead and continue to “Play outside the lines.”

This season we hone in on theatre artists and experimental practices that inspired Hip Pocket Theatre founders, Johnny and Diane Simons and Douglas Balentine to forge their own rustic theatre path back in 1976. For our 49th season we proudly bring together playwrights that have held a special place in the heart of Hip Pocket. Garcia Lorca and Sam Shepard, alongside George Bernard Shaw and author, Mary Shelley representing our theatre’s long standing interest in interpreting and adapting works for the stage. In the middle, a legacy Simons/ Balentine musical production complete with a live band and ensemble of performers. We feel deeply grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with such a stellar team of seasoned directors, composers, designers, musicians, actors, and technicians.

We hope you will come to the BIG PARTY we are excitedly planning for March 7th. And come on out to our open AUDITIONS on March 8th and 9th. Stay tuned to snag your audition slot.

With love,

Lake and Lorca Simons, Artistic Directors

Gianina Lambert, Managing Director

Peggy Kirby, Director of Finance and Development

Hip Pocket has an amazing opportunity to grow!

Give to our dollar for dollar MATCH and watch us thrive!

GIVE today and see it DOUBLE

Hip Pocket Theatre has been a vital part of the performing arts in Texas since 1976, when founders Johnny Simons, Diane Simons, and Douglas Balentine first staged their interdisciplinary plays under the stars in Fort Worth. Since its founding, the theater has grown its global reach and capacity for genre-defying programming, while staying true to the bold, playful, and magical.

Hip Pocket incorporates dance, mime, music, masks, and puppetry to create a universal language that can tell stories at once childlike and urgent. The scripts, the stage, and the performers at Hip Pocket build on a lexicon unique to its pioneering roots, and each performance is an homage to what it means to create a space for theater.

Hip Pocket honors the new vision of each artistic generation as an unfolding of time. Johnny and Diane’s daughters, Lorca and Lake, now carry the theater’s vision forward with their new directorship. They embody Hip Pocket's evolving vocabulary of storytelling and movement, and as veteran creators for its stage, look to expand its legacy of original, boundary-bending works. As Lorca and Lake bring with them lifelong careers and experience in the arts, they conscientiously seek to prioritize the theater's accessibility, inclusivity, and international reach.

Hip Pocket Theatre, as both experimental playhouse and environmental visual installation, has a long-standing outreach program comprising community based events and enriching healing arts programming. It is dedicated now, as always, to bringing guest artists from around the globe and throughout Fort Worth to collaborate on projects each season.
Lake Simons, Managing Artistic Director
Lorca Simons, Producing Artistic Director
Johnny Simons, Consulting Artistic Director
Gianina Lambert, Managing Director
Peggy Bott Kirby, Director of Finance and Development
Sarah Kate Barton, Social Media Manager
Lee Neisler, Master carpenter
Board of Directors:
Holly Nelson Ellman, President
Tracy Stearns Bush, Vice President
Jesse Borries, Secretary
Jequari Moore, Treasurer
Aaron Butler
Lauren Ivy Chiong
Nikki Deshea Smith
Marian Eastman
Yvonne Duque- Guerrero
Paul Hamilton
Thad Isbell
John Key
John Leach
Quentin McGown
Barbara Wooten Meece
Brian Pierce
Maria Solano
Leslie Zvitt
Artistic Advisory Board:
Bruce Balentine
Barbara Busackino
Andy Corren
Alex Cowan
Ellen Mahoney Crouse
Tom Crouse
Scott Ferree
Peter Fodera
Deborah Freed
Loli Kantor
Dr. John P. Murphy
Basil Twist
Greg Vore
Joe Waller
Ms. Linda Whittington
We love our volunteers! Come out and join in! Be part of the action and lend a hand! For more info on how you can volunteer and lend a hand call us or email us.
817-246-9775
hpt@hippocket.org
Throughout our season we welcome volunteers! If you have experience with box office, as an usher, or would like to help us in any way- we can likely use your help! Contact us at the above number or email us.
GET INVOLVED! BE HIP!

In loving memory of Diane Simons, co-founder, producer, and costume designer of Hip Pocket Theatre.

Thank you to everyone for sharing your memories and love of Diane with us on our social media page. We offer it here for our community. If you are moved please share your own memories of Diane there.

In remembrance of Diane, here are some special stories written about her and Johnny over the years. And a special bonus TV story from 1994.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10161676351949219&set=a.76608944218

http://www.magarchive.tcu.edu/articles/2006-03-FE2.asp?issueid=200603

https://bit.ly/3C6aSZg

https://www.facebook.com/brian.pierce.77312/videos/2227594327696975?idorvanity=171625060586

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Hip Pocket Theatre HERE.