Hip Pocket Theatre

The 46th Season (2022) began with an adaptation of Pinocchio Commedia, adapted by Johnny Simons and directed by David Yeakle, followed by The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain, adapted and directed by Yvonne Duque-Guerrero, with original music by Darrin Kobetich. When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne, was the third spot in our summer season. WWWVY was adapted by Lake Simons and John Dyer with original music by John Dyer and direction by Lake Simons. Next up was a complete change of pace with Sam Shepard's and Joseph Chaikin's Savage Love, directed by Lorca Simons. The closer for the 46th summer season was a lively performance of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, adapted by Johnny Simons, directed by the late JoAnn Gracey, with original music by Joe Rogers. In 2022, we had 52 actual performances of 5 shows between 6/3 and 10/30/2022, losing the final 2 performances of the season to rain. With the lifting of seating restrictions, we had 3,802 audience members enjoying live theater under the stars.

Hip Pocket Theatre has an extensive outreach program which for 33 years has included weekly visits to Cook Children's Medical Center psychiatric units for Creative Expression workshops with their inpatient and outpatient populations. A second part of the outreach program involves performance/workshops in the elementary school system, called Story Soup which is an interactive program teaching children the basics of story writing based on the TEKS guidelines for first through third grades in English and literature. The effects of COVID-19 have continued in those systems far longer than ever anticipated, and the theater was unable to get back into their outreach programming in 2022.