New Stage Theatre in Jackson opens its 60th anniversary season with a murder mystery farce that might just as well have a Murphy’s Law mandate. Simply put, “The Play That Goes Wrong” does, in so many ways, as a troupe of actors do their disastrous darnedest to get through the  mishap-prone opening night of a 1920s whodunit.

That makes it the perfect introduction for this milestone anniversary season, said New Stage Artistic Director Francine Thomas Reynolds. “I think you have to go with anything that happens, right?”

The show-must-go-on drive has seen the regional professional theater through a storied history that has launched careers, built a reliable stable of talent, supported new works and brought rich Mississippi stories, American classics and powerful contemporary fare to the Jackson stage. 

From the start, the founders’ commitment reached beyond entertainment. They wanted something different, hence the “New Stage” name. Desegregating the stage and the audience in civil rights era Mississippi brought called-in threats, Reynolds said, recalling conversations with founding Artistic Director Ivan Rider. 

“Doing things like ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ as their first show — it was very bold. … They kept going. They did it.” 

Subsequent hurdles included a financial crisis that nearly closed the theater in 2001, but New Stage powered through with an “intermission” season, skeleton staff and volunteers, and rebuilt. The COVID-19 pandemic brought another huge challenge. 

“While theaters were closing or pausing around the country, we pivoted,” said Sharon Miles, former New Stage education director, frequent performer and, later this season, a guest director. Virtual play readings, streamed shows and an online summer camp met the moment.  

“That type of resilience says so much about who we are as artists, as a theater, as a community, and I won’t ever forget that,” she said.

“I think after 60 years, a lot does go wrong, that you make right,” Reynolds said, from problem-solving design challenges to keeping the lights on (or rehearsing in the back alley when Katrina knocks them out). “That’s part of the magic of theater, and how you make it happen and how you persevere.”

A milestone season brings into focus what the theater has gotten right all along. That perseverance and its legacy have a generational impact. Starkville native Miles was a 9th grader when she saw a production of August Wilson’s “Fences” at New Stage Theatre. 

“It was the first time I had ever seen an all-Black cast. It was a turning point in my life, because I did not know you could make a career in theater before that moment.” 

Miles just completed her master of fine arts degree in acting at Northwestern University in Chicago. She returns to New Stage in February to direct the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Primary Trust” by Eboni Booth, part of the anniversary season’s main stage lineup.

Award-winning Atlanta-based playwright Topher Payne is among many who can claim New Stage as a launchpad. 

“I’m so fortunate that that was where, as a teenager, I learned what I had a right to expect in a professional theater environment, which was so driven by people first, product second,” said Payne, who came onboard as an apprentice almost 30 years ago. 

“From (founder) Jane Reid Petty forward, it was always with the goal of creating a space where community can gather. And, that wasn’t just what we’re offering the audience. It’s what we’re offering as artists, to each other,” Payne said. “For me, as a 17-year-old artsy kid from Kosciusko, that was my safe space. … It was safe for me to be joyful. It was safe for me to be brave and bold and make mistakes, and have the support of the community. That still propels me forward and expects me to do the same for others.” 

He worked that theater know-how into a professional career that has taken him all over the world. It pulls him back to Mississippi in April, when he’ll direct his new play “The Attala County Garden Club,” a contemporary Southern comedy Payne described as “a little bit ‘Witches of Eastwick’ … a little bit ‘Get Out.’” 

“It’s a story for everybody who ever thought they wanted to fit in, and then have to deal with what happens when they do,” he said.

Veteran New Stage actor Jo Ann Robinson’s show count hovers around 58, and she’ll notch another in Payne’s play next spring. The theater’s faithful core group of Mississippi-based performers and crew who return, show after show, bring the skill and dedication artistic directors can rely on, she said. 

“They’re responsible, they show up when they’re supposed to, and they’re easy to work with. … That makes it better for everyone.

“The people behind the scenes, the crews, the designers, the people in administration, the actors that work there consistently — it’s like home to us,” Robinson said. “That does set it apart.”

That care runs deep. This week, New Stage unveils the honorary renaming of the Belhaven block bound by Carlisle, Whitworth, Fortification and Monroe streets to Bill McCarty Square. The move celebrates Bill McCarty III’s roles as passionate New Stage volunteer for more than 50 years, generous donor and, for the past 24 years without compensation, the theater’s general manager.

Jackson actor John Howell, an intern in 1993 and briefly education director, adds to his frequent onstage work in “The Play That Goes Wrong,” as the earnest actor playing the butler. Fondren Theatre Workshop, started by Howell and his wife, Diana, in 2003, partners with New Stage to present John Maxwell’s play “We Need to Talk” at the New Stage’s Warehouse Theatre in November.

Now retired from teaching, Howell highlighted the key role of training at New Stage. 

“There are so many opportunities for young people, starting with kids, starting with the camps and the classes. So many people who are onstage now started out back then, as kids,” he said, noting, too, its extraordinary opportunities for associates (formerly called interns) for professional training. “They basically create their own season in the Unframed Series, in addition to all the touring and the support they give to the main shows.

“New Stage is a really great laboratory for learning about the art of theater, for all ages, for all skill levels, and for all types of interests,” Howell said.

That’s intentional. 

“When we hire people, we spend a lot of time making sure that they have a good foundation for more work,” Reynolds added.

Miles called it “a garden of fertile ground for artists. It’s a place where local talent can grow — whether you’re acting, directing or working in design.” Fruits from her New Stage time include character and community building, and the importance of costume checks. 

One night, playing the star’s best friend in “Mahalia: A Gospel Musical,” her usually meticulous check proved not good enough. 

“I’m supposed to be driving this car and we’re supposed to take off really, really fast. … So, I speed off, I throw my head back and my wig comes off onstage! I’m completely frozen. I don’t know what to do, and Mahalia looks at me and says, ‘Didn’t put that wig on too tight, did you?’”

They laughed and so did the audience, who probably never knew it was a flub. Miles chuckled.

“I check my wigs very securely now.”

Reynolds’ own New Stage roots reach back to 1989 with a “Steel Magnolias” role, followed by day camp leadership and education director, and acting and guest directing till 1995. She came back in 2006 to restart the day camp, was kept on to plan the main stage season and hired as artistic director in 2007. 

A thread throughout the theater’s history is a focus on good scripts. 

“This is one thing I always remember about Jane,” Reynolds said of New Stage Theatre founder Petty’s constant eye on well-written scripts. “She would say that, and I always kept that in my head.”

Mississippi stories, written by Mississippians and/or dealing with the state’s culture, icons and history, are another key thread. Plays by Eudora Welty, Beth Henley and Tennessee Williams, certainly, graced the stage, and so have works by Payne, Maxwell and Randy Redd, adaptations of books by John Grisham and Jill Conner Browne, plays about or including Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Bobby Rush, productions tapping into state history with the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, Fannie Lou Hamer, Freedom Riders,  the murder of Emmett Till and more.

About 70% of the actors onstage are Mississippians. 

“I think it’s real important to be within the community, and build community,” Reynolds said. “Theater has the agency to build community more than a lot of things.”

 She sees it in the summer day camps. 

“I say all the time, ‘If politicians would do day camp, everything would be better.’ People from all walks of life — private and public school, different districts, different counties — come together and have a good time and solve problems and collaborate.” 

In 2017, New Stage initiated the Mississippi Plays Series as part of its Eudora Welty New Play Series, partly because certain plays and stories told about Mississippi did not get it right, Reynolds said. 

“I thought it was real important that we pay attention to the stories that are being told about Mississippi, and try to contribute to that.”

When it comes to the “magic” of theater, the production team has conjured some gasp-worthy moments over the years. The train in “Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express” (2019-20 season, Scenic Designer Dex Edwards), complete with moving cars onstage, was a particular standout that amazed even a seasoned pro. 

Maxwell, also a former artistic director as well as longtime actor, sat behind Technical Director Richard Lawrence in the audience one night, and murmured praise the first time the train’s dining car moved to the sleeper car, Lawrence said.  

“Then it moved again in the same direction … and he leaned over and goes, ‘I know how big this theater is, where the hell is that train going?’” When the train split for the caboose to come downstage, a string of “Omigods” summed up the wonder. 

“The train was the very first time I ever got applause for a set,” Lawrence said.

Another high point was the truck in “The Grapes of Wrath,” (2013-14 season, also designed by Edwards). Packing up the house, the family stacked items on the table which then turned around to reveal the truck it had become — a washboard as radiator, pots for headlights, washtubs for wheels. Built on a small turntable on a slipstage, it was able to turn and drive across the stage. 

“That was, to me, pretty ding-dang cool,” Lawrence said.

Onstage rain in several productions and a moment in “The Sound of Music,” when the whole villa moved downstage (to applause from wowed viewers) were other high points.

“One of the things New Stage does well, and it’s partly because of you,” Reynolds said to Lawrence, “is that we are able to look good on a small budget.”

Lawrence nodded. “That’s the miracle, every time.”

“The Play That Goes Wrong” opens Tuesday and continues its run through Sept. 21 at New Stage Theater, 1100 Carlisle St. in Jackson. For showtimes and tickets, visit www.newstagetheatre.com or call 601-948-3533.