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Houston Family Arts Center (HFAC) was founded in November 2005 by nine individuals
with over one hundred collective years experience in high school, college, community, and professional theatre. The
purpose for creating HFAC was to provide a fun outlet for creative community involvement through the production of high-quality,
family-friendly, affordable entertainment.
HFAC's first production was a musical review in February 2006, performed on the stage of Liberty Revival Church (LRC). During our first year we produced six shows with 213 actors and 5,019 patrons. Our second year of operation was eventful in many ways. We produced our first true hit, mounting the Houston community theatre premiere of High School Musical. The show featured 50 actors drawn from a pool of over 100 who auditioned. The nine sold-out performances drew a total of 2,770 patrons. On the heels of this success, in the first quarter of 2006, we learned that our venue, LRC, would be relocating. We had to find a new venue by July of that year. While we were initially distressed about losing our venue, it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We were forced to look for other venues and were fortunate to find the newly opened Berry Center in Cypress, TX, a multiple use complex owned and operated by the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District. The Berry Center has a 456 seat theatre which we rented for our productions of Seussical the Musical and Pirates of Penzance. In 2007, without a permanent home, we produced six shows with 276 actors and 10,620 patrons. The years of 2008 and 2009 found us nomads in Northwest Houston. HFAC performed in nine different venues and developed great working relationships with the Berry Center, several churches and community, college, and professional theatres. During these two years we produced 14 Mainstage shows and 6 Kids-in-Theatre (KIT) shows with 614 actors and 24,882 patrons. In November 2008, we hired our first executive director, Bob Clark. He was a co-founder of our theatre and the president of our board. In January 2009, we opened the HFAC Actors Academy located at 10760 Grant Road just north of Willowbrook Mall in NW Houston. This facility provided us with a permanent home and much needed space for offices, rehearsals, classes, and a venue for our KIT productions. In the spring of 2010, we established the Teen Actors Guild (TAG) in order to provide excellent performance opportunities for advanced teen actors, allowing them to fill lead roles that might otherwise go to adults, and to develop their acting talent to the next level. The Teen Actors' Guild is specifically for advanced young actors in grades 7-12. Shows are by audition only, and are highly competitive. The crowning achievement in our first five years of operation was the opening of the HFAC Garza Mainstage, adjacent to our Actors Academy, in May 2010. This beautifully designed 150-seat intimate theatre has state-of-the-art sound and lighting equipment and is one of the best small theatre venues in Texas. We opened The Garza Mainstage with the world premiere of Love & Marriage Texas Style, a play loosely based on The Taming of the Shrew, and set in Tomball, TX. We were fortunate to have Elaine Edstrom, the local Houston playwright, direct the show for us. During 2010, HFAC produced 17 Mainstage, Teen Actors Guild (TAG), Kids in Theatre (KIT) and Homeshool shows with 357 actors and 8,829 patrons. 2011 saw the expansion of the HFAC Actors Academy, with four additional classrooms, and an agressive spring and summer schedule. Linda Jacobs was hired as the Managing Director of the Academy. It has been a delight to watch the progress of students through the Academy, the growth in skills, and the friendships formed. As we look to the future, HFAC continues to be committed to producing original and established family-friendly theatrical works (dramas, comedies, and musicals) while incorporating high artistic quality and cultural diversity, and to inspiring children, teens, and adults by providing a safe and encouraging environment that fosters creativity, respect, healthy personal growth, character development and family involvement. HFAC is dedicated to building long-term relationships with our actors, patrons and community by providing exceptional entertainment and education. Our next major capital campaign is to raise funds to build a 125-seat theatre for our youth performance workshop productions.
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