Little Fang Photos
Southern Rep Theatre has officially taken up residence in Bayou Road's St. Rose de Lima Catholic Church.
Driving down New Orleans’ historic Bayou Road, it would be difficult—really, impossible—to miss the architectural icon that is the St. Rose de Lima Catholic Church. Towering above the neighboring shops and small businesses, the 104-year-old building has long reigned as the area’s focal point and spiritual gathering place. Now in 2019, after being shuttered for fourteen years following Hurricane Katrina, the church is re-establishing itself as the cultural center of the neighborhood, this time as the home to New Orleans’ award-winning, critically-acclaimed Southern Rep Theatre, which has spent the last six years on the road.
“How incredible to be a New Orleans institution that gets to keep a historic building like this one as a meeting place,” says Southern Rep Producing Artistic Director Aimée Hayes. “We feel the responsibility of the building’s history and neighborhood and are thoughtfully and excitingly doing things to interact with that.”
Stepping into the building, under massive stained glass windows and the proud statue of St. Rose herself, one enters the vaulted sacred space of a vestibule-turned-cabaret-style-venue, complete with the Sanctuary Bar built from the pews of the old church. A small, momentarily uninhabited stage sits in the corner, which Hayes says will host small “Lagniappe” lectures and productions in the future.
Walking back, past Stations of the Cross, closer and closer to what used to be the church’s sanctuary, we reach the Southern Rep Main Stage, a Black Box theatre designed by internationally recognized performance space consultants Charcoal Blue. For Southern Rep’s first show of the season, Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves, the stage—situated in the center of the room, in between two halves of the 125 seats facing off—is covered in Astroturf and drenched in white light.
John B. Barrois
A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Sarah DeLappe's "The Wolves" is an ode to the complex layers of teenage girlhood, told inside the world of indoor soccer. Southern Rep's production of the play, directed by Aimée Hayes, will be performed throughout the end of January and until February 3.
Hayes says that the timing of this play and the grand opening of Southern Rep’s new home were coincidental, and yet: “The Wolves…I’m really glad it was The Wolves. This play really showcases what we do well. Really character driven, really rich characters, really intimate.”
When the play—a wrenching and comedic portrayal of young womanhood centered around teenage soccer players—begins, and #8 (Keyara Milliner) wonders if living in “Middle America” qualifies she and her friends for hobbithood because “like Middle Earth so like…The Shire,” or #7 (Grace Kennedy) rages against the injustice of the patriarchy in high school soccer or the girls take turns rubbing #25’s (Constance Thompson) head after she’s buzzed it, yelling “Dude! Your hair!”, I’m less than ten feet away and feel both overwhelmingly drawn back into my own adolescence and impulsively compelled to join them in theirs.
Performances of The Wolves will be held January 31—February 2 at 7:30 pm, with a 3 pm performance on February 3. 2541 Bayou Road. southernrep.com.
This article originally appeared in the February 2019 issue. Subscribe to our print edition here.
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