Fort Griffin Fandangle

The State's Oldest Outdoor Musical

FOR THE LAST 78 years, the residents of Albany, Texas, have put on the oldest outdoor musical in the state. The show depicts the Texas frontier story and includes everything that makes the state’s history so grand. With something for everyone — music, dancing, drama, pageantry, real longhorns and horses, cowboys and Indians — the Fort Griffin Fandangle isn’t to be missed.

BIG AS ALL OUTDOORS: (from top) Riders on horseback swoop onto the open prairie stage with a flag parade to kick off each Fandangle performance; spirited performers have been telling the Texas frontier story for 78 years (bottom).

Fort Griffin Fandangle

The latest season of the Fandangle is scheduled for June 17-18 and June 24-25. The nationally acclaimed show begins under the Texas sky each evening at 8 p.m. in the Prairie Theater just outside of Albany. The Prairie Star BBQ Brigade will serve barbecue the day of each performance at the First National Bank Park. Every year, the show is directed, lighted, costumed, sung and danced by the people of Albany — a town of just over 2,000. Produced since 1938, it’s grown into a community production, staged in an acre-sized amphitheater with a cast and crew of over 250. For many, it’s become a family tradition with as many as five generations on stage.

The Fandangle Parade, featuring some of the favorite pieces from the show — like the stagecoach and the steam-driven calliope — begins at 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 18. The calliope is one of the few remaining steam organs in existence. It’s played prior to each of the four performances and is the only musical instrument in Texas that hasto be inspected every year. G.P. Crutchfield of Albany built the Fandangle’s calliope in the early 1950s using scrap parts from oil fields and a boiler from a steam laundry in Wichita Falls.

The show portrays the feelings of the Western pioneers as they lived day to day. It’s entirely original, and careful research is done to ensure that the look and feel of the production remains as authentic as possible. However, Fandangle’s history is told with a light touch, one that speaks to the humor of daily life as well as the fears and calamities. It’s history not as it comes from books but as it is remembered by the old-timers. And it’s history set to music.

The Fort Griffin Fandangle is a gentle satire of life at the famous U.S. Cavalry fort north of Albany and in the lively town of Griffin, often called “The Flat,” which sprang up nearby. The fort was situated on the hilltop for protection from bands of marauding Indians. The town grew up between the bottom of the hill and the Clear Fork of the Brazos River and, during the 1870s and 1880s, was one of the wildest in the West. Doc Holliday lived in Griffin before he went to Tombstone. Big Nose Kate spent a night in jail for trying to burn down a hotel to help Doc escape the law. Wyatt Earp stayed only a few days, remarking to Doc that “Griffin was too wild for me.” Lottie Deno, the gracious lady of the gambling table, saw her lover shot dead there.

While the Fandangle depicts the cavalry soldiers and offers a glimpse into the wilder side of life, it also shows the other sides — the buffalo hunters who spent weeks hunting and skinning; the cowboys who drove the herds up the Western Trail to Abilene, Kansas; the mother who feared Indians, disease and loneliness; the young man “gone to Texas” and the girl he found there; the children and the old folks; and the Indians and their decline. The four performances are attended by over 10,000 people each year, some of whom return annually to refresh their memories and to enjoy the surprises of a new Fandangle production.

BIG AS ALL OUTDOORS: The Fandangle cast includes the state’s Official Longhorn Herd in telling the story of cowboys, ranchers and long trail drives.

Fort Griffin Fandangle

Fandangle scripts were written by playwright and author Robert Nail, who also produced the show from 1938 until his death in 1968. The show has never been out of Albany’s hands. Betsy Parsons, who grew up in the Fandangle, is in her 25th year as director of the production, continuing in the traditions that use the best talents of the people of Shackelford County.

One of those people is Treca Edington, Fandangle board member and sidesaddle rider. She’s participated in the Fandangle for 50 years. “The Fandangle is part of my heart and soul,” she says. “It’s part of my heritage. The stories are true, and I hope that people who see the Fandangle come to love Texas and our heritage as much as I do.”

With a show like the Fort Griffin Fandangle, falling in love with the past and present of Texas is a guarantee.