‘It felt like a little part of me was dying’: Performers react to Theatre Baton Rouge closing its curtains

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Theatre Baton Rouge, formerly known as Baton Rouge Little Theatre, is shutting down after 79 years of live performances, and actors and crew are devastated to hear the news.

The lights, audience, and the community on and off the stage are all things that made actress Diane Isom fall in love with Theatre Baton Rouge.

RELATED: Theatre Baton Rouge will not move forward with 80th season due to financial situation

“When I moved to Baton Rouge from Ohio, Theatre Baton Rouge was the first place that I stepped in before my own apartment. It was literally home to me, and I just connected with so many people that they became my actual friends outside of theater,” Isom said.

Isom performed onstage in various plays for five years of the theatre’s 79 seasons.

“I started theatre because I was able to be somebody else. I didn’t like who I was and being able to step into another character allowed me to step away from reality and the things that we deal with in life, you know life just being life, and so to be able to convey a message to be able to be on stage to be able to commune. It is a feeling that I will never be able to describe,” Isom said.

Now, the curtains are closing at Theatre Baton Rouge for good.

“It felt like honestly, it felt like a little part of me was dying. One thing that I don’t like just about life in general is that everything has to come to an end, and I think my first reaction was just sadness,” Isom said.

Over the weekend, the theatre announced it would no longer continue producing shows and is ending its 79th season early due to the impact of the pandemic and rising costs, saying in a statement, “There is no feasible path that allows us to keep creating art under these financial constraints. This is a decision we never wanted to make, and we do so with profound sadness, loss, and grief.”

“There are other theaters, but that was the one that was close. It was kind of in the heart of Baton Rouge. It wasn’t too far at least for me. It was a 10-minute drive and I spent more time there than I did at my job. It’s just really, really just sad. It’s disappointing,” Isom said.

Isom says in spite of the theatre’s closing, the story does not end here for performers and artists in Baton Rouge.

“I think this is actually what brings us together. These types of things, I think this is what make us love one another harder, makes us stick together and just fight for each other. This is a hard and sad situation. There is going to be great fruit coming from it so I personally I am not worried. I think that we have a need for theatre. We have a need for just being creative and I think that somebody’s going to come around and offer up a space for it,” Isom said.

Theatre Baton Rouge’s final production is Xanadu, which runs every weekend until March 23. For tickets, click here.

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