Theatre Baton Rouge was one of the staples of Louisiana and Baton Rouge culture, and the announcement of its closure was devastating for more than just the theater community. Though the news about the closure seemed decided after its final show in March of this year, there were some who refused to give up so easily.
Shannon Walsh is a Theatre History professor at LSU, as well as the associate dean in the College of Music and Dramatic Arts. She remembers exactly where she was when she found out about TBR’s fate and said she and her peers were heartbroken and stunned by the news.
“I think a lot of people were just like, ‘well, what happened?’ And then similarly, I was like, ‘we can’t let this happen,’” said Walsh.
Walsh has a long history with TBR — after her children started performing there, she began directing at TBR while also directing at LSU. She believes that TBR has been an important space not just for her and her family, but so many others in the Baton Rouge community.
“One of the things that’s happened over the past six months is that people who don’t know I have any attachment to TBR but know I do theater will bring it up to me,” Walsh said. “It will be people who are not theater people. It will be just random people in Baton Rouge. They’ll tell me these memories that they had of going.”
The road since the announcement of TBR’s closure has been long, but Walsh and many others knew they had to do something to save the space they love. The catalyst was when Joe Carleton, a former LSU Theatre student, posted about not letting TBR close down. Carleton, Walsh and many others came together shortly afterwards to figure out how they were going to save the theater they love so dearly.
The team came up with a wealth of options for how to keep TBR running or, at least, keep the space as a home for theater and the arts. The process was long; it took the team a lot of work and planning to figure out the next steps. Finally, a new theater company was founded: Mid City Civic Theatre.
The new organization’s appearance has been swift, as it was only announced less than three weeks ago. When formulating the name for the theater, there were many conversations about what the team loved and what they wished to improve about the way TBR functioned. “Mid City” was chosen because they wanted the name to be identifiable with the area, and “Civic” because, for the team, creating a space for the arts isn’t just something for fun — it is a civic duty to the community.
Walsh said that the theater plans to host a Christmas event in December, not just as a fundraiser for the organization, but as a time for people to reclaim what was formerly Theatre Baton Rouge. Other plans for Mid City Civic Theatre include holding classes for the community, renting the space out to other theater companies and overall allowing the space to become something more than just a theater.
As the Mid City Civic Theatre team fundraises and establishes what the future will look like, they are hoping to eventually start producing shows again. The summer of 2026 seems to be the time for the first show back, and Walsh promises that there are some crowd pleasers in the works.
Holiday Lights at Mid City Civic Theatre is planned for Dec. 18 as a welcome home and a fundraiser to help the company get off the ground. For news and updates from Mid City Civic Theatre, its Instagram and website are where to go. The next few months are going to be critical for the organization’s future, so stay tuned to see where the team goes from here.
