The Hobby Center has brought Houston two decades of world class musical theater and plays as part of its Broadway at the Hobby Center series, as well being the home for Theatre Under the Stars and giving a stage and spotlight to some of Houston’s stellar music, dance, and theater organizations. As the organization moves into its next stage, the Hobby Center will more fully embrace its name and identity as a center to present even more diverse and dynamic local, national, and international performing art. To do so, it's raising the curtain on an epic $45 million plan to renovate the building and add a third permanent performance space.
Plans calls for transforming the underutilized event area between the expansive Sarofim Hall and midsized Zilkha Hall — currently home to the Live at the Founder Club series — into a intimate club-like theater with seating for 160 people. Once complete, the realized concept will combine club-style seating, a full bar, and elevated dining and service throughout performances.
The new theater will include balcony seating, with both levels wrapping around the stage on three sides. The downtown Houston skyline will make for the perfect backdrop for a range of performance genres and artists.
“The space capitalizes on that kind of iconic downtown view with the stage set against the windows. It’s a space that is intended to create a really distinctive sense of place and connection to the city.” Hobby Center president and CEO Mark Folkes tells CultureMap. “This is an opportunity to really expand the identity and understanding of what a performing arts center is to the city.
In the past several years, the Hobby Center has embraced its role as a presenter by founding the Beyond Broadway Series, which brings in stage and screen megastars for one or two night only performances, and the Live at the Founders Club season of intimate jazz, Broadway songbook, and world music performances. And it is this last series, now in its fourth year, that became the spark and inspiration for creating a new stage.
“Through the first 20 years of our organization's life, I would say we primarily thought about ourselves as a building, a venue, which is true of most Houstonians,” Folkes says. Rising from Buffalo Bayou to take its place amid the Houston skyline, the building has become a familiar and treasured Houston landmark. But beyond the walls and spaces, Folkes also thinks of the Hobby Center as a prime connector between artists and audiences. Folkes explains they’ve been “playing in new spaces,” and Live at the Founders Club is one such inspired romp. Now, it will become the Hobby’s permanent third space.
“It’'ll shift from being an event space as it is today, where we set up temporarily when we're doing this programming, to being a year-round venue that's open and presenting a diverse range of artists in this supper club hospitality environment,” Folkes says.
Folkes thinks of the new space as one of limitless possibilities for performance programming. Once the space is complete, the programming will also ramp up from around 30 Founders Club performances per season to 150.
“There are so many opportunities for engaging Houston-based artists as well as touring artists nationally and globally for this room specifically,” says Folkes, noting that the organization has more flexibility for programming artists for an intimate theater space. Many artists love being in such a space for the connection they form with the audience.
For those who know Houston as a center for world class culinary arts, Folkes adds that the new theater will also include a designated kitchen and plans are in the works to make this an elevated dining, as well as performance, experience.
Folkes says that one question many performing arts organizations have been thinking on is how to “create a more dynamic and vibrant Theater District that includes lots of different types of audience experiences." He believes this new space will be one answer to that quest.
Other changes
Beyond this third performance venue, audiences will notice lots of other changes throughout the Hobby Center campus. In May, Ken and Mady Kades made a $5 million gift as a significant element of the Hobby Center’s grand future that will include the Kades Club, a hospitality lounge that will become the ultimate place to see and be seen in the Theater District. But the next few years will also bring major transformations to the Grand Lobby, the Zilkha Hall Lobby, and the Hobby box office. Audiences can also expect enhanced food and beverage offerings, and refined pre-show and intermission gathering spaces.
Behind the scenes, the organization just completed renovations of its administrative offices. In addition, technology and fittings in Sarofim Hall have been upgraded for the first time in more than 20 years, with additional improvements in Zilkha Hall.
Construction will begin in the summer of 2027, with an opening date for the as-yet-unnamed new performance space slated for fall 2028. Folkes assures Houstonians that the shows will go on throughout construction with no pause in performances in Sarofim and Zilkha Halls. Founder’s Club performances will continue while the renovations proceed, although in a different location.
The campus transformation is led by Gensler as architect and interior designer, Charcoalblue as theater consultant, and Forney Construction as construction manager and general contractor. A New Stage, the capital campaign to support such visions has already raised $31 million to date, including three lead $5 million gifts from the Hamill Foundation, the Ken and Mady Kades Foundation, and the Sarofim Foundation.
