Jenny Ballard

Jenny Ballard might be a newcomer to Theatre Baton Rouge, but at the age of thirty-six, she’s already a veteran of professional and community theatre stages.

Born and raised in Tennessee, Ballard fell in love with theatre at the age of eleven, grew up on stages in Knoxville and around the southeast, became interim managing director for the Knoxville Actor’s Co-op in 2003, and founded the Knoxville Children’s Theatre in 2007. She came to Baton Rouge in 2010, where she earned her M.F.A. in theatre at LSU and appeared in LSU Theatre and Swine Palace productions including The Taming of the Shrew, August Osage County, All the King’s Men, Spill, Pride & Prejudice, and King Lear.

In July Ballard became Theatre Baton Rouge’s managing artistic director and also directed TBR’s wildly successful summer musical, Annie. Now, as the 2014—2015 season opens, Ballard is raising expectations about the kind of shows audiences should expect from the capital city’s oldest community theatre.

She took time between rehearsals for Mary Poppins (opening September 12) to grab lunch at Bistro Byronz and explain. From a corner table and between bites of Byronz’ much-lauded chicken salad sandwich, Ballard described an ambitious program for expanding the frequency and range of shows TBR presents—and the diversity of audiences it serves.

CR: Tell us about your background.

JB: I’d done a lot of theatre growing up. I went to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and majored in English with a theatre minor. I started acting professionally in 2000, working with a number of theatre companies around Knoxville, and regionally too. But the more I acted, the more I thought I had director tendencies. I found myself thinking about the other characters, and the show as a whole, rather than just about my character. That interest seemed to fall into a director’s skill set. I’m a big picture person (and a little bit of a control freak), and I enjoy running things and furthering the theatre in the community in general.

CR: You started Knoxville Children’s Theatre. What do you like about working with kids?

JB: They’re so uninhibited! They haven’t gotten to that place where they think they might look dumb or are worried about what people are thinking. They just get up there; they’re committed to having fun, and going big. Once you’re an adult, then society puts all these pressures on you. In my experience that starts to happen about age fifteen. From that point, as a director you have to retrain people how to access that uninhibited part of themselves again.

CR: Every theatre director wants to grow his or her audience. What would you say to entice prospective audience members to give TBR a try?

JB: First I would point out that we have a very large range of plays, with something for everyone. We have this Main Stage series that offers musicals like Mary Poppins and The Music Man for families. We do great musicals because Baton Rouge has this unbelievable talent base of singers and dancers. Maybe that’s because of the film industry or LSU’s Theatre program; but there seem to be lots of people here with good singing voices who turn to community theatre as an outlet.

We’re also presenting shows that will appeal to people who might not always have thought much about theatre. We’re doing Lombardi this fall, and I guarantee that play will appeal to a different demo than we’ve ever appealed to before. Our education program is great and growing by the day. And lastly we have the more avant garde City Series that allows audiences to broaden their experience and actors and directors to experiment.

CR: You launched the 2014-2015 Turner/Fischer City Series with a production of Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things, and just auditioned for Steven Sater’s Spring Awakening. Do these kinds of productions represent a new direction for TBR?

JB: I think the Turner/Fischer City Series is really important because it gives us a chance to do exploratory theatre that challenges both our actors and our audiences, and asks questions in a way we haven’t done much before. Spring Awakening asks what happens to a community of children if they don’t have an outlet for the sexual energy that comes with adolescence. It’s a look at what happens when people stop listening to each other, and stop talking to each other, and start talking at each other. This is award-winning theatre that presents challenging themes and adult situations that our audiences aren’t necessarily used to getting from us. I’m directing it so am trying to figure out how far I can go, because Spring Awakening is rated R: There is a lot of language, there’s going to be nudity, which is something that’s going to be very different. But it also won eight Tonys on Broadway, so it’s a proven quantity. But without John Fischer and Jimmy Turner sponsoring the series, I’m not sure we could get away with the kind of stuff we’re doing right now, because we’re still developing the audience. That said, The Shape of Things has actually sold pretty decently … but it’s no Mary Poppins!

CR: This summer’s production of Annie was a huge success, with a sold-out run and extra performances. How do you create that kind of theatre magic?

JB: It’s hard to point to one thing. A lot of it comes down to chemistry between actors. With Annie I got lucky because I had an amazing cast. The stage chemistry between Chip Davis, who played Daddy Warbucks, and Molly Beth Blanchard, who played Annie, was outta hand! Seventy percent of a good play is good casting, and an important part of casting is being able to read people quickly. For Annie we had 150 kids audition. I just had to read people as fast as I could, then go home and go through everything in my head and see who lined up with whom. By the time we started rehearsals, I’d run through the whole show in my head about fifty-five times.

CR: At its best, what does theatre do for a community?

JB: I think theatre teaches empathy. We live in a society where it’s harder and harder for people to put themselves in other peoples’ shoes. I think theatre has a special power to teach people about other walks of life. I think it has the potential to teach about subjects that are taboo in a very soft way. Take a show like Spring Awakening—that deals with subjects like teen suicide and abortion and rape—but does it in this fantastic, rock musical way. So you’re learning about things that are really uncomfortable, but somehow you’re going with it because they’re singing about it.

CR: How about you? What does theatre do for you?

JB: Theatre makes me feel like I’m changing the world in some small way. It’s always been important to me to do something good—to make some small positive effect on our world. Theatre is my chance to contribute to that—to say what I need to say to society—without having to run for office! Which is not something I’m interested in!

CR: Why did you choose Bistro Byronz for lunch today?

JB: Bistro for Your Cause! Bistro Byronz is part of TBR’s Dinner and a Show program that gives our subscribers the option of eating at one of four restaurants close to the theatre before shows. The restaurants offer a 20% discount to season ticket subscribers and make sure you’re on your way in time for the show. Participating restaurants are Byronz, Monjuni’s, Capital City Grill, and Mestizo.