Thank you for celebrating our 50th Anniversary Season with us! It was joyous, raucous, playful, and genuinely full on Hip Pocket!
The 51st season is just around the corner! Look out for the season announcement in January 2027.
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Oh! What a celebration we have had!
What an absolute joy it was to honor our roots! With every play, every opening night, and each special event, we held our founders’ artistic vision close to our hearts.
Thank you ALL for joining in and helping us to hold a candle high and rejoice and thank Johnny, Diane, and Douglas for giving us this gift….this Hip Pocket Theatre!
A bit about the creation of Hip Pocket Theatre…Est. 1976
Three artistic visionaries with a common goal: To create theatre their own way and on their own terms. A homemade artful theatre that embraced unconventional ways of sharing stories on stage by using movement, dance, mask, music, image, mime, spoken word, and puppetry. Hip Pocket was born! And its birth ignited imaginations and fulfilled a desire to create in ways that were not accessible at that time. Hip Pocket offered something new and different to audiences and to the artists that came out to play by taking theatre to another level of expression and energizing the imagination and encouraging us to play outside the lines. This is Hip Pocket Theatre at its heart.
When Johnny, Diane, and Douglas founded Hip Pocket Theatre in 1976 they fostered a community, a theatre family dedicated to theatre that integrated playfulness, artful expression and creative experimentation. That dedication to the theatre community is something we hold up to the light and cherish deep within our hearts and souls as we take the big steps into our 50th year of sharing theatre that explores storytelling, excites audience, honors legacy, while continuing to strengthen and deepen our ties with our community.
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And the beat goes on……….
-Lake and Lorca Simons, Co-Artistic Directors
Special November Performances!
From our clown friends of On The Wall
Clowns At The Beach tickets are on sale NOW!
Stay tuned in! Our 50th might be officially over, But, BIG ideas are brewing and you will not want to miss out!
Join our mailing list and we will keep you posted on what we are up to. Sign up HERE!
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The mission of Hip Pocket Theatre is to inspire, educate, and challenge our community through experimental, interdisciplinary theatre.
We seek to redefine the possibilities of theater and enrich every life we touch through artistic expression.
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.Hip Pocket Theatre acknowledges first that the land on which our theatre resides once belonged to native American tribes - Tonkawa, Hassinai Caddo, Wichita, Comanche-affiliated Kiowas - and we thank the First Nations for their teachings about and stewardship of the land. Hip Pocket Theatre is and always has been committed to giving a voice to artists of all races, ethnicities, and creeds. Because of this, we are committed to ensuring that we provide opportunities for everyone to learn, create, express themselves, and tell their stories. Hip Pocket Theatre strives to provide a place where all are welcomed, included, and provided equitable opportunities to experiment with their own artistic style and vision.
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Lake Simons, Co- Artistic Director
Lorca Simons, Co- Artistic Director
Johnny Simons, Consulting Artistic Director
Gianina Lambert, Managing Director
Peggy Bott Kirby, Director of Development
Ash Vance, Outreach Coordinator
Ryan Riley, Grounds and Events Manager
Lauren Riley, Social Media Manager
Abbey Hunt, Concessions Manager
Board of Directors:
Holly Nelson Ellman, President
Tracy Stearns Bush, Vice President
Jesse Borries, Secretary
Jequari Moore, Treasurer
Joe Brown
Lauren Ivy Chiong
Betsy Cummings
Debbie Dacus
Nikki Deshea Smith
Marian Eastman
Lizeth Garcia
Yvonne Duque- Guerrero
Paul Hamilton
Reece Harty
Thad Isbell
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
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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
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!
Hip Pocket Theatre would not be here today, nor be what it is today without her vision, guidance, brilliance, kindness, dedication, and creativity.
We are overjoyed to name our mentorship program after her. May the inspiration continue to the next generation of theatre makers!
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.
Come on out & experience an unforgettable night!
We wish to acknowledge the generous support we have received from these foundations, organizations, local businesses, and theaters.
We wish to acknowledge the generous support we have received from these foundations, organizations, local businesses, and theaters.
Hip Pocket Theatre is proud to be a member of the Live Theatre League of Tarrant County.
