After becoming a Baton Rouge staple and home for thousands, Theatre Baton Rouge announced last month it will close its doors after almost 80 years of theater magic.
Opening in 1946, TBR focused on creating “theatre for the community, by the community.” Since then, it has produced hundreds of plays and musicals for the Greater Baton Rouge community in its decades of performances.
In a press release, TBR cited financial issues for the sudden closing. From materials to buying rights to plays, community theaters across the nation have been struggling since the COVID-19 pandemic. Many were aware of TBR’s financial situation after its Light the Stage fundraising campaign in 2023, which raised over $100,000 for the theater and saved it from shutting down.
With the news of TBR closing, there has been an outpouring of love, grief and memories told by those who have worked in the theater. For many, TBR has been their home for over a decade, and losing this space is a shift they never saw coming. For others, the theater had become a recently-found place of community.
Jackie Haxthausen is a professional photographer and a newer TBR volunteer. For many of the more recent TBR shows, if there were promotional photos, Haxthausen probably took them. When the news broke, the first thing she felt was disappointment.
“I felt like a towel was being thrown in instead of releasing information to try to get people together and save [the theater] one more time,” she said.
Haxthausen was one of many trying to work with the TBR Board to see if there was something that could be done to save the community she said feels like family.
“You instantly feel a connected passion to just make things happen out of nothing,” Haxthausen said of TBR. “Everyone is creative, everyone is there because they want to make something that they’re proud of. So yeah, a family of creatives.”
Haxthausen said one of her favorite experiences at TBR was the “Waitress” show in August. Getting to work with her friends and having her two daughters in the show created some of her favorite memories.
Her girls attend Center Stage Performing Arts Academy in Gonzalez, but TBR’s Young Actors Program offered something different. It was the only place where children could do theater for free, including learning from professionals and experiencing full theatrical shows.
“It’s really disappointing that now there’s no place for them to go,” Haxthausen said.
Matt Miyagi echoed this. He started going to TBR when he was 12, and for the past 15 years he has been participating in shows, working tech and has even been employed by the theater. Miyagi called it his second home and a safe place.
Miyagi was a pillar of TBR, especially for the younger members he mentored in YAP. He was one of the inaugural members of YAP and once he graduated from college, he became the program’s education director.
One of Miyagi’s favorite memories with the theatre was the 2015 YAP production of “Oklahoma,” where he played Fry, a role he said was probably his favorite he’s ever played. He also recalled being the assistant directed for YAP’s performance of “Twelfth Night,” the first Shakespeare play the kids did on the mainstage and the first show to have a full house after the pandemic.
Miyagi said he loved seeing the YAP program develop and watching the students grow. He said there are no other programs like YAP in Baton Rouge, so he hopes for another local theater to follow in TBR’s footsteps.
Haxthausen wants the same, naming the Sullivan Theater as a place she hopes will create a program for young performers. She hopes it will not only be a place for those in theatre community, but also one that shows the community how great local theater is.
“We have to protect the arts at all costs,” Haxthausen said. “There is no good world without the arts.”
Others worry what the theater’s closure means for the performing community at large.
“It just gives me pause for the arts in Baton Rouge,” said Thomas Jackson, a longtime performer at TBR and a member of TBR’s final cast. “While I do have a lot of faith and confidence and hope in all the creatives in our area, and that we will all certainly — and already are — fighting for ways to continue to perform and as many capacities as possible, it’s just like, what a blow.”
As TBR’s last day drew closer, the cast of the final show, “Xanadu,” grappled with their new reality. Don Fields, who worked for TBR and played one of the main roles in “Xanadu,” explained his disappointment about the closure.
“It’s such a tragedy,” said Fields, a junior theatre major at LSU. “It’s such a shame, especially living in the south. We need theaters like this. We need cultural spaces like Theatre Baton Rouge. I’m a firm believer that art is an intrinsic part of the human experience whether you’re a performer or a consumer.”
TBR closed Sunday, March 23 after the final performance of “Xanadu.” For the final performance, the theater and stage were packed full of people cheering, singing and showing love to a space that has given them so much.
Marion Mayfield, the director of “Xanadu,” posted a statement commemorating the closing of the show and of the theater, thanking the community for being involved in TBR’s journey.
“You are the reason theater has thrived here for so many seasons,” Mayfield said, “and we are forever grateful for your support.”
