Four decades of applause for Hill Country Community Theatre
In its 40th year, the Hill Country Community Theatre is thriving, but its 146-seat venue is in need of a ‘second act.’ The organization’s board, executive director, and artistic director are looking at what the future may hold for the aging theater. Photo by Daniel Clifton
From the back row of the Hill Country Community Theatre* in Cottonwood Shores, board President Frank Reilly smiled as he watched rehearsals for the musical “Forever Plaid.”
“The theater is a wonderful place,” he said. “It’s a place people can come maybe be part of the theater itself as a volunteer, whether acting or helping other ways, or come and enjoy the shows. But it’s something else, too. It’s family.”
The upcoming 2025-26 season marks the HCCT’s 40th year. Since the first curtain went up in 1985, it has produced over 200 shows and events. The nonprofit theater sells more than 7,000 tickets a season, demonstrating its significance to Highland Lakes culture.
“It’s the community,” said HCCT Executive Director Heidi Melton when asked what accounts for the organization’s longevity, despite increasingly hard economic times for rural community theaters.
Melton and husband Daniel Melton, who is the HCCT’s artistic director, are entering their third season with the organization. In that time, they have witnessed the power of community theater in the Highland Lakes.
“People who have never experienced it show up and it shows them a whole new world that they fall in love with,” Heidi Melton said.
Reilly attributes the HCCT’s draw to the vibrancy of live theater and its hold on the imagination.
“It is a form of entertainment that you can’t get on Netflix or any other venue,” he said. “And you get to see people in the community, people that you know or may not know, but you get to see them in action. You get to see the interactions of the people and stage and the musicians. It’s an experience.”
The concept of a local theater was born out of a cocktail party in 1985 hosted by GiGi Fischer and Phyl Holbert, now both deceased. From that initial meeting, volunteers began building the stage that would become the Hill Country Community Theatre.
The first performance was at Horseshoe Bay’s Quail Point Lodge. The theater group hosted other productions at Marble Falls High School and even rehearsed in the Cottonwood Shores Volunteer Fire Department station. A permanent solution came about with the purchase and renovation of a boat dealership at the corner of FM 2147 and Dutch Lemming Lane in Cottonwood Shores, the HCCT’s current home.
The venue is in need of a second act, said Reilly and Heidi Melton. The 146-seat theater lacks the space needed for productions like “Mary Poppins,” which requires wire rigging. Actors squeeze into tight quarters backstage, and outside, parking is extremely limited. The city of Cottonwood Shores lightens that burden by allowing patrons to park in its nearby lot.
The Meltons and Reilly hope to either expand the current site or move to a new building in a different location. Reilly said they engaged an architect to visit with them about ideas, but any capital campaign is still a year or two away, at the least.
“We’re selling out more shows, and, at some point, we’re going to need to look to the future of the theater—Marble Falls, Cottonwood Shores, Horseshoe Bay—somewhere in the area,” he said. “The nature of this building, it’s been fantastic, but we’re very limited.”
Since its inception, the HCCT has depended on volunteers for most of the work that goes into a production. In 1999, with the exception of a few years after 2010, the theater’s board employed an executive director. Reilly, who began volunteering at the HCCT around 2008, said the executive director position has helped lift the theater’s production levels.
He and the Meltons agree, however, that the real key to the theater’s success remains the volunteers and the community.
“Honestly, if there wasn’t a love in the community for this kind of stuff, it wouldn’t last,” Daniel Melton said. “It was solely volunteer-run for the first 15 years, I think, which is amazing.”
Donations and sponsorships keep the HCCT’s doors open and curtains up. While the theater sells up to 7,000 tickets a season across six shows, the proceeds from that don’t cover all of its operating costs. Ticket sales might not even cover the cost of a production.
Volunteer hours are not all spent on the stage in rehearsals and performances. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes, such as set design, planning, and fundraising. Reilly has never stepped on stage but found his own way to contribute by serving on the board.
“The first time they volunteer, it’s like they have no idea how much it takes to build a set, paint a set, come up with the design,” Reilly said. “And they see, honestly, how fun and creative it is.”
While the applause of the audience is a wonderful reward for the time and hard work, Reilly said it’s more than that to everyone who works and volunteers at the HCCT.
“It’s a special place,” he said. “I’ve made so many wonderful friends—board members, patrons, and volunteers. It’s family.”
The Hill Country Community Theatre is located at 4003 FM 2147 West in Cottonwood Shores. For more information, visit thehcct.org or its Facebook page.
*The Hill Country Community Theatre adopted the British spelling of theater in its name, placing the “r” before the “e” at the end of the word. The Picayune uses the American spelling with an “er” when not referring to the full name of the theater.
HCCT’s Season 40
The lineup for each new season of the Hill Country Community Theatre is chosen by a selection committee comprised of volunteers, patrons who work with Executive Director Heidi Melton and Artistic Director Daniel Melton. The team shoots for a good mix of musicals and non-musical productions for the six-show season, while also throwing in something new or unfamiliar, like this season’s “The Mystery of Irma Vepp—A Penny Dreadful.”
The HCCT’s Season 40 runs from October 2025 through August 2026 and includes:
- “Young Frankenstein” (Oct. 17-Nov. 2, 2025)
- “Winter Wonderettes” (Dec. 5-21, 2025)
- “Lend Me a Tenor” (Feb. 6-22, 2026)
- “Lost in Yonkers” (April 10-26, 2026)
- “Into the Woods” (June 12-28, 2026)
- “The Mystery of Irma Vepp—A Penny Dreadful (Aug. 14-23, 2026)
Go to thehcct.org for tickets and details.