Eight months after the curtain fell on Theatre Baton Rouge’s final show, a team of arts-minded volunteers is reviving the legacy institution and its performance space on Florida Boulevard. Mid City Civic Theatre, operating under the same nonprofit organization as TBR, is bringing life back to Baton Rouge’s beloved community theatre—albeit under fresh leadership, with a new board, and with different financial expectations.
“I got real cheesy at one point,” said Caty LeJeune, one of the theatre’s co-founders. “I was like, ‘[it’s] a phoenix rising from the ashes!” Clichés aside, the theatre has undergone a sort of rebirth, bringing together a coalition of four volunteers with extensive professional theatrical experience and a shared mission to resuscitate the cash-strapped theatre, along with the cultural impact it had on the Baton Rouge community.
TBR announced its closure last spring due to monetary woes, despite its board’s best efforts to keep the theatre in the black. After wrapping one final show, Xanadu, in March to close out its seventy-ninth season, the building’s doors were locked, its stages darkened.
“It all goes back to honoring the legacy and continuing the growth.” —Caty LeJeune
“Covid did a number on theatre ticket numbers. Ticket sales for all our arts organizations are still not back to pre-Covid numbers. Supplies and the cost of everything just skyrocketed. So I think everything kind of hit a perfect storm,” LeJeune said. “And the business model that Theatre Baton Rouge was operating under just was not sustainable. They were producing thirteen shows a year … and putting out so much phenomenal work—but that also costs a lot of money.”
In the wake of TBR’s demise, LeJeune (an alumna of the theatre and pivotal figure in the development of its young actors program) and her theatre colleagues were heartbroken—as were denizens of the broader drama scene in Baton Rouge. She and three friends with arts and business experience set about the seemingly insurmountable task of resurrecting the theatre. Just before Halloween, the group launched its new name, inspired by the community theatre’s original moniker when it was founded in the late 1940s.
“When the organization was founded, they were founded as ‘Baton Rouge Civic Theater,’ so we wanted to kind of keep that ‘civic’ part of it. And also, supporting the arts is a civic duty—it’s something that makes our community better,” LeJeune said. “It all goes back to honoring the legacy and continuing the growth.”
“When things get rough, you kind of have to take that really big step back and say ‘Okay—we need a pause.’ We need to look at what was working and how we can continue to make that work. We need to look at what wasn’t working, and how can we change it to keep moving forward?” —Caty LeJeune
In addition to paring back the number of shows (“thirteen shows per season is just non-stop”), the new theatre model will emphasize rental opportunities for other drama troupes and organizations who lack a brick-and-mortar setup—offering both the 327-seat theatre and the 100-seat blackbox. LeJeune also plans to revive the educational programming that TBR was known for, recreating a shared space for training and fellowship.
The theatre’s leaders hope to pull in community members who care about the performing arts; in recent days, almost forty volunteers showed up, armed with brooms and disinfecting wipes, to clean the formerly shuttered venue on Florida Boulevard in preparation for opening. The Civic’s board hopes to act in concert with other theatre organizations when it comes to scheduling shows, so that patrons don’t have to choose between drama groups to support the arts locally.
On December 18, Mid City Civic Theatre will host a one-night fundraiser in advance of its first ticketed production in summer 2026. Holiday Lights at The Civic will feature live performances, food and drinks, and a look at the new theatre as a community hub in Mid City.
“This is also not the first community theatre to have a dark period. Theatres around the country, at different points of time, have said, ‘Hey look, we need to turn off the lights and close the doors for a little bit and regroup,” LeJeune added. “When things get rough, you kind of have to take that really big step back and say ‘Okay—we need a pause.’ We need to look at what was working and how we can continue to make that work. We need to look at what wasn’t working, and how can we change it to keep moving forward?”
Despite the intervening months of despair after the spring closure, it looks like the theatre will produce its eightieth season after all. midcitycivic.org.
