Oak Acres Amphitheatre

With the start of school my summer of scanning my design work has ended and I'm not nearly finished as yet! To keep the posts moving along I thought I would share this panoramic view of the Amphitheatre located at Oak Acres on the southwest end of Lake Worth in Fort Worth, Texas. The HIP POCKET THEATRE performed a summer season there from 1979 until the early 2000's before moving to their current home just a few miles away.

These photos where taken by me in the late summer of 1986 and show the space as I utilized it for the productions of OLD TARZAN by Simons & Balentine  and  IN WATERMELON SUGAR by Richard Brautigan. The theatre looks pretty ramshakle ( and it WAS!) during the daylight hours, but at night under the stage lighting ( and frequently the Moon lighting) this was a spot of pure magic.

The top photo is taken from the upstage platform looking out toward the Light Booth(on the right) and the main audience seating area. the botton shot shows the audience seating at stage right and a glimpse of the platform on which Douglas Balentine's band sat during performance. The speakers here covered with blue tarps during the week as protection against the infrequent Texas rains.

 Actors could enter from the aisleway leading up to the sloping hill in the background ( how many times I made my entrances from up there...once famously without the key prop gun I needed in THE MALTESE FALCON, which had fallen out of my suit pocket somehow...I used my finger as the "gun" and the show went on!)  There was also an entrance immediately off right in front of the band platform which lead straight up the hill to the old horse stable we used as our communal dressing room.