We had a great time talking with Tom, Kristin, Diana, Lacy and Danielle of Nouveau 47 Theatre this week! This was the first time I had been down to Fair Park and let me tell you, it was a cool experience. The crowds of the fair have yet to descend and the heat of the day had moved on by the time we got down there. We parked over by the African American Museum, something I didn't even know was there, and walked over to the Magnolia Lounge. The Magnolia Lounge is where Margo Jones opened her theatre in Dallas and if you haven’t looked into the history of the space (and it’s namesake), do it*. It’s Fascinating that some of the greatest American playwrights worked in Dallas. We had an opportunity to walk around the space and also check out this really beautiful amphitheatre where we recorded some of the audio for this weeks installment.

We went back last night for the theatre warming party and had the chance to mingle with the crowd that was there. FTP Comedy performed a set and The Meridian Room provided food and drinks. It was a fun time and it was nice to see so much support from the theatre community around this fledgeling company.

From Wikipedia: Her theater was in the sleek "Magnolia Lounge" (Magnolia Petroleum Company, later Mobil Oil) building, designed by Swiss-born architect William Lescaze, in 1936 for the Texas Centennial and situated on the grounds of Fair Park in Dallas. The theater was America's first modern nonprofit professional resident theater and also the first professional arena theater (theater-in-the-round) in the country. Jones was inspired by Franklin Roosevelt’s Depression era National Theater Project and the European arts movement which she had experienced directly during the 1930s. The resident company was dedicated to staging new plays and classics of world theater rather than revivals of past Broadway hits. The initial season introduced William Inge's first play, Farther Off from Heaven, later revised as The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.