D E PA R T M E N T S T H E AT E R
BROADWAY STAR AND THEATRE RALEIGH FOUNDER MAKES AN EVOLUTIONARY MOVE BY KURT DUSTERBERG | PHOTOS COURTESY OF THEATRE RALEIGH
L
auren Kennedy Brady is giving a tour of Theatre Raleigh, describing her vision for the many rooms and spaces. At one end of the sprawling lobby, she approaches a makeshift stage and a scattering of comfy furniture. Earlier this year, before the 300-seat main theater was finished, the company staged “Forever Plaid” in this makeshift area. “We turned all these couches and bar tables around and built riser seating,” she says. “So it felt like a cabaret.” Kennedy Brady is Theatre Raleigh’s producing artistic director. She is also the executive director of the organization and has operated Theatre Raleigh for nearly a decade. But this is the second act in her professional life. Before she came home, she starred on Broadway, earning credits in “Sunset Boulevard,” “Les Miserables” and “Monty Python’s Spamalot.” Kennedy Brady graduated from Broughton High School before attending the University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music. Two years into her college career, she took a master class taught by an agent who sent her on an 102 | midtownmag.com
audition for “Sunset Boulevard.” When she landed a role in the ensemble in 1994, she had a decision to make. She remembers, “This is what I’m here to do. My parents were so supportive. It’s Andrew Lloyd Webber. Glen Close is starring in it. How can you really turn that down?” But after more than a decade based in New York, Kennedy Brady felt the tug of her hometown, where her family had deep roots in the theater community. Her parents are the patrons behind the Kennedy Theatre at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts. Her father and brother ran a summer series in the 133-seat theater for a few years, while Kennedy Brady served as a creative consultant from New York. With the theater unable to make money, she took the patron list and started over, founding Theatre Raleigh in 2008 before becoming a nonprofit in 2011. Today, the theater company continues its transformation on Old Wake Forest Road. The new home became available in June 2020 when a church vacated the space. The location is hardly what you
would expect for a professional theater, occupying one end of a brick-and-siding strip mall. “Yes, it has its idiosyncrasies, and yes, it’s a warehouse-y, office complex-y thing,” Kennedy Brady says with joyful resignation. “But as long as it’s evolutionary, then we’re good.”
How did theater become part of your life? My parents loved theater. When we were kids, they would take us to New York and we would see six shows in four days. They passed on that love to three of the four of us. My sister and I started auditioning for all the different community theaters and doing a ton of shows. Then you get bitten by the bug and you can’t imagine your life being anything else. I started doing shows with professionals when I was in eighth grade. All through high school, I would do shows at North Carolina Theatre and people would fly in from New York. They would be staying at a hotel downtown, and I was like, “Oh my God, that’s just what I want to do.” It just seemed like such an awesome life.
