A Hay Barn Near Round Top Became a Shakespeare Theater

Ima Hogg helped preserve Winedale. She restored a stretch of pasture, woods, and pioneer buildings near Round Top, then gave it to the University of Texas. One 1880s hay barn reminded her of an Elizabethan theater.

Hogg suggested that UT professor James Ayres have his students perform Shakespeare in it. He agreed. Shakespeare at Winedale began as an English course in 1970.

The barn became the program's theater. Students learn the plays by performing them. During the summer program, they live and work in the Fayette County countryside. The converted barn keeps its old farm shell around an Elizabethan-style theater.

That second life is the turn in the Winedale story. Preservation did not freeze the barn. It gave the building another job. A place made for farm work now fills with Shakespearean arguments, mistaken identities, and applause.