The Masquerade Theatre is a professional musical theatre

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 company based in Houston, Texas

Houston, Texas

Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...

 and performing year-round in the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts

Hobby Center for the Performing Arts

The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts is a theater in Houston, Texas, USA. Opened to the public in 2002, the theater is located downtown on the edge of the Houston Theater District. Hobby Center features 60-foot-high glass walls with views of Houston's skyscrapers, Tranquility Park and Houston...

.

History and Mission

The Masquerade Theatre was established in 1996 in a small dive bar converted into a black box theatre by founding artistic director Phillip Duggins with the mission of providing a place for Houston-based actors to perform and work, and to provide theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 of the highest caliber to the city. Since then, Masquerade has become one of the few performance arts companies in Houston that supports a full-time resident company of performers. Successful productions of Chess

Chess (musical)

Chess is a musical with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, formerly of ABBA, and with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story involves a romantic triangle between two top players, an American and a Russian, in a world chess championship, and a woman who manages one and falls in love with the other;...

, I Remember Mama

I Remember Mama (musical)

I Remember Mama is a musical with a book by Thomas Meehan, lyrics by Martin Charnin and Raymond Jessel, and music by Richard Rodgers.-Origins:...

, and The Melody Lingers On in the Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall prompted a full-time move downtown in 2005. Masquerade has since become the resident theatre company of Zilkha Hall.

The Tribble School of Professional Musical Theatre

The Masquerade Theatre's training wing, named for two of its most influential patrons, was brought into being as a means to reach out to the youth of Houston and allow them to develop their skills as performers in a professional setting. The Tribble School is taught by members of Masquerade's Resident Company, who direct students in full-length musicals and dance recitals over the course of a full semester. Each semester culminates in fully produced performances.