Evangeline the Musical returns to Theatre Baton Rouge

Theatre Baton Rouge is beginning its new season with an old favorite that helped put several local theater professionals on the map.

This month, Evangeline the Musical returns to one of the first stages it called home in the early 2000s. Back then, local theater professionals Jamie Wax and Paul Taranto wrote the original musical about a young couple separated by the Acadian expulsion from Nova Scotia. After a test run in a concert performance at Episcopal, the musical saw its first community theater staging at what was then Baton Rouge Little Theatre.

It’s popularity grew with performances around Louisiana, one of which aired on Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Performances were even translated into French in Nova Scotia.

While Wax has since moved to New York, where he works at CBS News, Taranto has continued producing local theater with his wife, Darlene, and has provided musical direction in nearly every production of Evangeline

“There are people who write shows for theater who maybe never see them get produced,” Taranto says. “We’ve been so fortunate that the show has been produced so many times in so many places and so many people have seen it, and we try not to take it for granted.”

Theatre Baton Rouge’s newest production of the musical, more than a decade later, will feature what Taranto calls “some slight changes that we think will make the story a little better,” including a new dance number. “But I think it’s the same production that everyone will recognize.”

Several actors who performed in the original production are returning, including André Chapoy, who has played Father Felician in nearly every production. Wax’s son Ethan is also involved, playing the teenage Gabriel, who falls for the young Evangeline Bellefontaine.

While some at Theatre Baton Rouge are hoping Wax’s New York connections will help this Evangeline find a new life on a bigger stage, Taranto says his hope is for more people in south Louisiana to fall in love with the story.

“It’s just great to be able to see the show up and alive again and have a new audience see it,” he says.

Evangeline the Musical runs Sept. 16-Oct. 2 at Theatre Baton Rouge. Paige Gagliano directs. Find out more at theatrebr.org.