The mall donated $100, the use of a tent and folding chairs. Mark built the stage complete with foot lights, and formed a cast and crew from volunteer theater lovers. "We built it and they did come", says Mark. An old-fashioned melodrama complete with popcorn throwing, booing, hissing and cheering! So many people came that they were encouraged to bring their own chairs!

Its success led Mark and Linda to approach management with the idea of producing shows through the winter ’"indoors" . An empty store and metal folding chairs were provided by the mall.

The little production company (almost small enough to put in your pocket) moved indoors, built a little stage and put on great plays. Audiences grew and filled the 100 uncomfortable folding chairs for every show.

In late 1996, The Pocket Theatre incorporated as a non-profit 501 (C) (3) Corporation. (All donations are tax deductible.)

Audiences increased and the store facility was outgrown. In late 1997 The Pocket Theatre moved into its next location on Higdon Ferry Road. There were 177 comfortable seats, a larger stage and even a sound and light booth!
The first show at the Higdon Ferry theatre was "Angel Street" in January of 1998. We had 47 productions at the Higdon Ferry Theatre including our first Children's Theatre Workshops and our first musical productions, and a couple of shows produced by other groups. Our last show at Higdon Ferry was "Second Time Around" in July of 2005.

A plan was put forth to work toward owning our own building. In this way we could ensure stability and could choose a site where we didn't have to deal with noise from neighboring businesses. After much effort and searching, a suitable location was chosen early in 2005 which we then aquired. After a great deal of work preparing the building for productions, we were able to open the new building with the final show of the 2005 season, October's "Harvey".

Our new building is located at the corner of Ravine and Ramble Streets off Park Avenue in downtown Hot Springs. The building is the former Ramble Elementary School auditorium which was closed as a school in the Spring of 1967 when Park Elementary opened. At least one of its former students has become fairly well known nation-wide, former President Bill Clinton. After closing the main school building was torn down and the auditorium has been used for a variety of purposes including a couple of churches before we aquired it.

The building is a two story structure with a large auditorium, lobby, restrooms in the lobby and backstage, rehearsal hall, kitchen, workshop, storage rooms, and a fenced-in, paved parking lot! It gives us room to grow and gives us more oppurtunity to a wider variety of shows.

Updates

In September of 2006, thanks to the hard work of two "strapping" young men, Christopher Powers and Joshua Williams, the Pocket Theatre now has two theatres in our building. The new theatre is The Back Pocket Theatre, a black box theatre located in the basement of our building at Ramble and Ravine and accessed through a back door located down a flight of steps at the rear of the building.

The purpose of the new theatre is to allow actors and directors an opportunity to explore challenging and meaningful productions that may not have the support or popularity to be considered for the main Pocket Theatre stage. It should be noted that some of these plays are modern dramas and comedies which are written from a very frank and modern viewpoint. Therefore the emotions expressed and language used can be raw and mature in nature.

In particular, Back Pocket Productions, also founded by Christopher Powers and Joshua Williams, seeks to produce plays that specifically appeal to young adults, with the hopes of getting more young people interested in theatre. With the production of their first four plays, ‘W.A.S.P.’ by Steve Martin, ‘Naomi in the Living Room’ by Christopher Durrang, ‘The Problem’ by A.R. Gurney Jr., and ‘Boy’s Life’ by Howard Korder, it has definitely given our young actors further experience, and based on the audiences, we have seen more young people drawn to the theatre.

We are proud of this new theatre and the contemporary art forms it promotes and we hope it continues to thrive and help the Pocket Theatre in its general growth as well.

In October of 2006, we completed a set of risers for our audience in time for the opening of 'The Trip to Bountiful'. This corrects some of the sight line problems audiences were experiencing and should also help with some of hearing problems as well. This is the first of many capital improvements to the theatre we have planned to improve the experience for our patrons.

May of 2007 will see the accomplishment of our second capital improvement project, in time for 'The Nerd', a proper sound and light booth. This will allow our light and sound technicians to have more flexibility in what they can do without interfering with the experience of the audience.

Our mission statement is to provide quality productions at reasonable prices for the citizens of Hot Springs and surrounding communities and to work toward our own theatre facility. We want to build for the future by involving young people today.

Who are we supported by and associated with?

The Pocket Theatre is incorporated as a non-profit 501 (C) (3) Corporation. (All donations are tax deductible.)

The Pocket Theatre is proud to be a member of The American Association of Community Theater

The Pocket Theatre is located in beautiful Hot Springs, Arkansas