Marietta’s Theatre in the Square Hopes to Raise $250K by Year-End

After 79 years, Theatre Baton Rouge sits empty. What its stunning closure means for local theater

It was supposed to have been the seventh of nine shows in Theatre Baton Rouge’s 79th season. But the schmaltzy, upbeat roller skate musical, Xanadu, ended up being TBR’s last show ever. On March 1, six days before Xanadu’s opening night, TBR’s board of governors abruptly announced the veteran arts organization’s closure. The nonprofit would neither stage the season’s last two shows, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Fiddler on the Roof, nor would it rea…

Marietta’s Theatre in the Square hopes to raise $250K by year-end

By Mark Woolsey Marietta’s Theatre in the Square is turning ten years old this year-and it’s marking the occasion with an ambitious fund drive designed to ensure the organization’s financial and artistic viability well into the future. The backstory: The original Theatre on the Square went out of business during the 2008 recession. Years later, a short-lived push for a revival foundered. Then, the new owner, Raul Thomas, bought the building and,…