Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 00:33:00

Austin's biggest theatre stands where the Longhorns once played baseball. Bass Concert Hall at 2350 Robert Dedman Drive opened in 1981 on the site of the old Clark Field diamond, the flagship of the University of Texas Performing Arts Center and still the largest theatre in the city at 2,900 seats. Named for philanthropists Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass, the hall was built to full roadhouse specification: a vast stage, an adjustable orchestra pit holding 100 musicians, dressing rooms for casts of more than 100, and a mammoth backstage complex with in-house shops for scenic fabrication, painting, metalwork, props and stage automation. That infrastructure is why the biggest tours stop here: Broadway Across America routes its full-scale productions through Bass, and the annual calendar mixes touring musicals, headline concerts, comedy, dance companies and lecture series with university programming. The building has been renewed in waves - a 15-million-dollar 2007 renovation upgraded the acoustics and wrapped the entrance in a glass atrium lobby, orchestra seating was replaced in 2012, and a 3.5-million-dollar pandemic-era project rebuilt both balconies and the audio-video backbone. Texas Performing Arts operates the hall alongside its campus siblings - the McCullough Theatre, Bates Recital Hall and the drama department's stages - making the Robert Dedman corridor the densest performing-arts block in central Texas. Parking garages serve the complex directly, the LBJ Presidential Library is a neighbour, and for four decades the rule of thumb has held: if the production is too big for anywhere else in Austin, it is at Bass. The hall's campus role runs deeper than presenting: student rush tickets, open dress rehearsals and the university's own opera, orchestra and dance productions share the stage with the commercial calendar, and the backstage shops double as teaching labs for UT's theatre production programs - Broadway loads in next to the classroom that trains its future crews. Seasonal highlights like the touring Nutcracker and holiday concerts have made the building a generational habit for Austin families.