Texas Studio: Amanda Reyes is Working through It Onstage

On a warm Texas night, the cicadas buzz in harmony with the actors at Hip Pocket Theatre in Fort Worth. The wooden stage, tucked beneath a blanket of stars, feels more like a secret hideaway than a performance venue. It was here—surrounded by nature, magic, and community—that Amanda Reyes rediscovered her love for acting.

“I felt at home almost immediately,” Reyes recalls of that first audition back after nearly a decade away. “Hip Pocket’s welcoming and inclusive environment really allowed me to regain my confidence as an actor.”

That sense of homecoming is something Reyes has been chasing her entire career. Born in Denton and raised in Lewisville (“home of the fighting farmers,” she laughs), Reyes grew up escaping to the movie theater, Blockbuster, and Vista Ridge Mall, dreaming of stories far beyond the suburbs. Those dreams carried her from Collin College’s theater program to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles, but all the while she was chasing that spark she first felt at eight years old, sitting in the velvet seats of the Music Hall at Fair Park as the curtain rose on West Side Story. Reyes had grown up enchanted by movie musicals like The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins, but this was different. This was the first time she saw characters onstage who looked like her and her family. However, L.A. was where she quickly discovered the harsh reality of audition rooms that pigeonholed her into Latina stereotypes.

“I wanted to help repair the narrative of what it means to be Mexican American,” she says. And so, she shifted her focus behind the camera, earning a BA in film at the University of North Texas and later an MFA in directing from Brooklyn’s Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema. Filmmaking gave her a new way to tell stories that mattered to her.

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Gabriela Yarbrough, Amanda Reyes, and Lauren Riley in the Hip Pocket Theatre production of Big Love. Photo courtesy of Hip Pocket Theatre.

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Amanda Reyes in the Stage West production of David MacGregor’s Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Fallen Soufflé. Photo by Evan Michael Woods.

 

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Amanda Reyes in the Stage West production of David MacGregor’s Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Fallen Soufflé. Photo by Evan Michael Woods.

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Amanda Reyes in the Amphibian Stage production of Kathleen Culebro’s The Amazing, Fabulous, and Spectacular Untruths of Juan Garcia. Photo courtesy of Amphibian Stage.

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Amanda Reyes in Circle Theatre’s production of Jason Odell Williams’s Destroying David. Photo by Taystan Photography.

 

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Amanda Reyes in Circle Theatre’s production of Jason Odell Williams’s Destroying David. Photo by Taystan Photography. 

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But when COVID-19 shut down productions, Reyes found herself back in Texas, grieving the loss of both her industry momentum and, later, her best friend and artistic collaborator, composer Tim Brauer. It was her husband, Wesley, who encouraged her to audition again. That nudge changed everything.

Since then, Reyes has become a fixture in Fort Worth’s theater community, appearing in The Diaries of Adam and Eve, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Big Love at Hip Pocket Theatre; The Visit and the world premiere of The Amazing, Fabulous, and Spectacular Untruths of Juan Garcia at Amphibian Stage; Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Fallen Souffle at Stage West; and Second Thought Theatre’s Dallas premiere of Healed. But it was her one-woman performance in Circle Theatre’s Destroying David that became her artistic touchstone.

“The character I played, ‘You’, takes the audience on a tour of Michelangelo’s  David and explores the statue’s history and fatal flaw, all while intimately threading in personal details of the character’s journey through grief. That show gave me a space to process my own grief,” Reyes shares. “I have always used art as a catharsis and this production was such a healing and fulfilling experience for me and for, I hope, the audience as well.”

Her approach to acting reflects that depth: Reyes memorizes lines early so she can focus on physicality in rehearsals. She lets the character seep into her daily life; their music becomes her soundtrack, their expertise her new obsession. “I have to see from the character’s perspective,” she explains. “If you don’t understand your character’s motives, the audience will feel that—and it’s a disservice to their experience.”

This September, she’s directing El Rey del Pollo at Echo Theatre, a Shakespeare-meets-telenovela mashup told in Spanglish and Elizabethan verse. “It’s family-friendly, it’s funny, and it’s so clever,” she says. “If you know King Lear, you’ll love it, but it also stands on its own.”

Offstage, Reyes balances her artistic life with a career as a communications specialist for the City of Fort Worth, where she flexes her digital media and design skills. She’s also on the board of Amphibian Stage and recently signed with Broad Talent Agency in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Still, when asked why she continues to pursue the performing arts despite the instability, Reyes’ answer is simple: Theater is more than a career. It’s a lifeline.

“The arts aren’t just entertainment, they’re fuel for the mind, a bridge to empathy, a spark for the soul,” she says. “Live theater can transport you, transform you, and leave you forever changed. Support small local stages, fund the arts, and see what happens when the curtain rises.”

—LINDSEY WILSON