Our History

Carolyn Franklin, an experienced actor, director and teacher, founded HITS Theatre in 1980 under the name "Houston Upstairs Theatre School," because it was located upstairs in an office building.   When the school moved into its own theatre in the Houston Heights in 1984, it became known simply as "HITS." Architect Rey de la Resa transformed the building from a masonry warehouse used as a maintenance garage for the post office into a theatre. The Houston Heights Association chose the building for its Adaptive Reuse Award in 1985. The entire theatre was again renovated in 2006 with new seats, carpeting and paint inside and out. Carolyn Franklin retired as Executive and Artistic Director in 2006. Upon Carolyn’s retirement, Fred Sheppard became Executive Director and recently, JoAnne Woodard, an experienced actor, director and teacher from Milwaukee, took over as executive artistic director.

From the beginning, HITS has always had two major goals for children in the arts: Education and performance. Unlike many other performing arts organizations in Houston, where educational programs are a secondary activity to their regular subscription series, HITS’ primary activity is education. A HITS education is much more than children learning to sing, dance and act. It is the entire HITS process that transforms our students into disciplined team players, creative thinkers, confident speakers and, perhaps most importantly, empathetic individuals. While many of our alumni have gone on to careers in the performing arts, many more have used the confidence they developed at HITS to become successful physicians, engineers, and attorneys in the community.

Today HITS is one of the leading performing arts education organizations for young people in the Houston metropolitan area. It is dedicated to providing school age students the highest quality performing arts education with a focus on training in the musical theater disciplines of voice, dance and acting. HITS serves the entire Houston metropolitan region with registered students as far south as Pearland, east to Baytown, north to the Woodlands and west to Katy.

Since 1987, the highlight of HITS' year is in April, when it produces a wholesome, Broadway-style family musical at Houston’s Miller Outdoor Theater free-of-charge to the public. This past April, the theater presented six performances of "Peter Pan" to a combined audience of 20,000 people. Out of our cast of 60, 50 of the performers were children under the age of 18. HITS' next Miller production will be Beauty and the Beast, which will be April 9-11 and April 16-18, 2009.

HITS’ community outreach programs provide arts education opportunities at several HISD schools through after-school and in-school residencies. Upon request, HITS students also perform with Opera in the Heights and the Moores School of Music opera productions as well as for charitable, business and civic events.

HITS Theatre is a member of the Greater Heights Area Chamber of Commerce.