The characters of the interactive, zany cult favorite The Rocky Horror Show take to the stage this month as Theatre Baton Rouge once again performs the 1973 musical that inspired the film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s one of 10 shows the popular theater company is featuring in its 77th season, spanning August 2022 to June 2023.
Every show the organization puts on demands an intense commitment. Actors work for nine to 12 weeks, rehearsing until late at night. Set makers and tech crews work after hours to create mood-setting details. A resident costume designer fashions looks that reinforce each character’s believability. Except for a few paid staff members, Theatre Baton Rouge’s productions are run exclusively by volunteers who donate thousands of hours to fulfill their personal passion for the theater.
“The commitment to this organization is amazing,” says Theatre Baton Rouge Artistic Director Jenny Ballard, in her ninth year at the helm. “Baton Rouge has talent coming out of the woodwork. I’ve never lived anywhere where it’s like this.”
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Launched in 1946 as Baton Rouge Civic Theater, the organization originally staged performances at Harding Field Air Base, the current location of the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport and a former military training facility during World War II. A decade later, the Civic Theater changed its name to Baton Rouge Little Theater, a common name then for nationwide community theaters. In 2013, another rebrand brought a new moniker: Theatre Baton Rouge.
“We just weren’t little anymore,” Ballard says. “And it was a misconception with ‘little’ in our name that we were a children’s theater.” 
Family shows are part of each season’s repertoire, but so are a multitude of other genres, including adult musicals, complex farses and provocative dramas. No material is off limits, resulting in seasonal line-ups that include a little of everything. Experimental shows are held in Theatre Baton Rouge’s Studio Theatre, an intimate space on its Florida Boulevard campus that places audiences close to the action unfolding on stage. Broader appeal shows are staged on the Main Stage, originally built in 1962 after a major fundraising effort.
This season began with sold-out performances of The Wizard of Oz, continued with the stirring drama Doubt and moves next month to The Addams Family. Shows continue until June when the season wraps with the musical Legally Blonde.
Ballard’s tenure has been defined by expanding Theatre Baton Rouge’s identity as a “teaching theater,” she says.
“(It’s) like a teaching hospital, where students can come and hone their craft, and work on skills that they can take to college or a career,” Ballard says. The theater features regular acting classes as well as its Young Actors Program, responsible for two of the season’s 10 shows.
“Our goal is to introduce as many new people as we can to the theater,” Ballard says. “It’s how we grow our talent and our audience.” theatrebr.org
FALL RADAR
225 Theatre Collective
“Join us for Night of Scary Stories, Oct. 13 at The Guru. This event will consist of dramatized storytelling of real, unexplainable and supernatural occurrences that will keep you on the edge of your seat.”
—Stephanie Bartage, co-founder
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Playmakers of Baton Rouge
“Playmakers is so excited to be celebrating our 40th Season (including shows like A Christmas Story the Musical, Dec. 9-18). It is also our first full season since 2019.”
—Todd Henry, executive director
This article was originally published in the October 2022 issue of 225 magazine.