Alley Theatre
Brutalist theatre of 1968 housing one of the oldest resident acting companies in the USA.
The company was founded in 1947 by Nina Vance, who summoned an audience by posting 214 penny postcards. Its early homes were a dance studio reached down an alley, which gave the theatre its name, and a converted fan factory. A Ford Foundation grant and local fundraising paid for the present building on Texas Avenue, designed by the New York architect Ulrich Franzen and opened in 1968. Nine slab towers of board-formed concrete rise around the auditoria, a much-published example of late modernism.
There are two auditoria: the thrust-stage Hubbard Theatre seating about 774 and the smaller arena-form Neuhaus Theatre below it. The Alley works with a resident company of actors, a rarity in the United States, and received a Tony Award for regional theatre in 1996. Floodwater from Hurricane Harvey in 2017 filled the Neuhaus and much of the basement; repairs and a refit were completed the following year. Programming mixes classics, thrillers and new writing.
Highlights
- Board-formed concrete towers by Ulrich Franzen, completed 1968
- Thrust-stage Hubbard Theatre seating around 774
- Arena-form Neuhaus Theatre for smaller-scale work
- One of the few US theatres with a resident acting company
