Globe of the Great Southwest, Theatre in Odessa, United States.
Globe of the Great Southwest is an octagonal theatre on the Odessa College campus in West Texas, with around 410 seats fitted with red opera chairs. A separate adjacent building, modeled after Anne Hathaway's cottage in England, serves as an additional facility connected to the main venue.
The idea for the theatre came from a student project in Mrs. Marjorie Morris' English class at Odessa High School in 1948. It took until 1964 for the building to be completed, the result of more than fifteen years of effort by students and community members.
The Globe of the Great Southwest hosts Shakespeare productions alongside monthly country western shows called The Brand New Opree, drawing very different crowds to the same stage. Seeing both kinds of performances happen in the same octagonal hall gives a good sense of how the space is shared by the local community.
The theatre sits on the Odessa College campus and is easy to find on foot once you are on the grounds. Getting there a little early gives you time to look around the adjacent cottage building and the outdoor area before the show starts.
The walls of the building contain decorative stones collected from five different states across the American Southwest. This means the structure itself carries a small geographical record of the wider region built into its surface.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
