“TURNING DISASTERS
INTO OPPORTUNITIES”
Seven years ago, when Southern Rep
Theatre lost the lease it had held for
19 years in the Theaters at Canal
Place, the surprise announcement led some
veteran observers of the New Orleans live
theatre scene to speculate that it might be
the end of the road for the popular regional
theatrical company that had established
its name by staging new, original and
seldom-performed works.
However, what the skeptics failed to take
into account was the gritty and fierce determination
of Southern Rep’s award-winning
actor, director and producing artistic director,
Aimée Hayes, to keep the company alive
and active. And, despite the uncertainties
of a nomadic sojourn Southern Rep would
endure for the next six years, a reward was
in store when it finally landed a new permanent
home base in 2018.
During the company’s years of being
“on the road locally,” Aimée (pronounced
long-A may, not long-A me) was its guiding
force, focused on making the best out of
what could have been a bad situation. Or,
as she confidently put it in her own words,
“I am always going to make disaster an
opportunity.”
In the world of live theatre, “Things will
always go wrong but that’s okay,” said Aimée
Aimée Hayes
NTO makes good things
happen onstage
with ith S Southern th R
Rep
who both acts in and directs Southern Rep
productions, in addition to her official
duties as the company’s chief executive.
“Sometimes your best work comes out of
crazy errors and mistakes. Things that can
be setbacks can actually become opportunities
for growth,” she added.
And so, while Southern Rep productions
were loading in and out of a wide variety
of local venues several times a year, Aimée
said she and the company learned valuable
lessons that are now serving them well in
their new home, the refurbished former St.
Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Bayou
Road near its intersection with North Broad
Street.
Among those lessons cited by Aimée were
the company’s ability to adapt to whatever
space was available for a given production,
as well as “how to make decisions faster
and solve problems in a different way than
you would normally. Things like this make
you a better producer and it made us grow
a lot as a company. I got to meet a lot of
different people along the way and it was a
really satisfying journey.”
Between 2007, when she took over
management of the company, and the present,
Aimée has acted in five Southern Rep
productions, directed another 25 mainstage
By Dean M. Shapiro
PHOTO: ©ALAN SMASON/CRESCENT CITY JEWISH NEWS
productions and won numerous Big Easy
Awards for Theatre. She was a finalist for the
prestigious 2016 Zelda Fichandler Award.
One of her most noteworthy accomplishments
was directing the regional premiere
of the critically acclaimed, four-time Tony
Award-nominated Lisa D’Amour play,
“Airline Highway,” that ran on Broadway in
2015 and was set in the New Orleans area.
Most recently Aimée held down one
of the lead roles in the regional premiere
of another Broadway hit, five-time Tony
Award-winning “August: Osage County,”
for which she received rave reviews in the
local media.
For many years under Aimée’s leadership,
Southern Rep regularly produced a
Tennessee Williams play for the annual
Tennessee Williams Literary Festival which,
in turn, cast her in some of her most memorable
roles. “My favorite was Blanche (in “A
Streetcar Named Desire”) and one of my
toughest was Hannah (in “The Night of the
Iguana”), she said.
Today Southern Rep continues its tradition
of participation in the Williams Festival
but not as a producer of a Williams play.
Now the company produces an annual
non-Williams, locally themed play for the
festival’s “Saints and Sinners” sub-group.
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