Prepared by Sinéad Whiteside, Inspired Minds Art Center
The room where Buda's city council once debated zoning variances and budget line items now stages sword fights, show tunes and community theatre. The octagonal chamber inside the city's old city hall building has been reborn as the Chambers Theatre, the resident theatre company of Inspired Minds Art Center. The space is intimate, seating audiences close enough to feel less like watching a performance and more like being part of it. This fall gives audiences across the region several reasons to pay attention.
On Friday, Sept. 25, the theatre opens "They're Coming to Get You," a theatrical reimagining of Night of the Living Dead written and directed by local playwright Heath Thompson and performed entirely by the local community. It's the kind of project Chambers makes room for: local writers, directors and performers building something of their own. Three weeks later, the same stage hosts the Buda Arts Festival, Oct. 12-17, with a film festival, poetry slam, improv comedy and aerial performance. The holidays bring A Charlie Brown Christmas Live!, running Dec. 5-14. Events like these, along with the annual Buda Summer Musical in the Park, draw audiences from up and down the IH-35 corridor, from Round Rock to San Antonio, and from Hill Country towns like Wimberley and Dripping Springs.
Chambers Theatre is also home to Gravy Shakes Improv, a resident troupe of nine local performers who build every scene live with no script. The troupe takes the stage monthly for an Improv Night, with the next one scheduled during the Buda Arts Festival on Oct. 16. Meet the players at www.BudaImprov.com.
For Sinéad Whiteside and Susan Guerra, who co-founded Inspired Minds in 2020, the appeal is as personal as it is artistic. "I love watching children grow up in our program and then join the Chambers Theatre Company once they're adults," Whiteside said. "The group becomes this really special, loving, accepting family. They always have that support, and when they perform on stage, they get it from the community too." That closeness, she added, is why the quality holds, pushing the cast toward craft that rivals much larger theatres. Nearly everyone in the company holds a day job, giving up multiple weeks of evenings to rehearsal and performances. Chambers takes that commitment seriously and gives it a real stage, not just a hobby.
Leading that company is Bridget Gates, the theatre's director and manager. Before joining Inspired Minds, Gates spent twelve years as artistic director of the EmilyAnn Theatre and has directed more than 100 mainstage productions, with three stints at the Royal Shakespeare Company. "It doesn't matter if someone's never set foot on a stage or has been doing this for years," Gates said. "My job is to help them find their voice." The programs welcome beginners and seasoned performers alike, adults and children both, with minimal sets so the actors, not the backdrop, carry the story.
The programs span every age group. The Beginner/Intermediate Afterschool Drama Class, ages 5-11, is rehearsing Disney's Winnie the Pooh KIDS. The Youth Musical Theatre Academy, ages 12-18, is in rehearsals for Anastasia the Musical, opening Nov. 19. Adults can enroll in “Acting: Tools for Transforming Your Life” or “Building the Actor's Brain,” an eight-week acting intro for beginners, taught by Rob Novak, trained at Texas State University and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Classes run year-round; camps run each summer. Details on classes, camps and tickets are at www.inspiredminds.art.
The council members who once occupied that octagonal room debated policy behind closed doors. The people who occupy it now perform in front of a packed house that increasingly includes people who drove in from well outside Buda city limits to see it.
