10 years of Broadway homecomings: Lexington Theatre Company’s biggest night yet

Ten years ago, Lyndy Franklin-Smith and Jeromy Smith launched the Lexington Theatre Company as a bold proposition: A professional musical theater troupe that would bring Broadway-level talent to the Bluegrass while serving as an educational theater for aspiring student and local performers.

One of the unstated benefits of the arrangement will be on stage at the Lexington Opera House on Jan. 11 as the company, known to its artists and fans as The Lex, presents the 10th anniversary edition of its annual “Concert with the Stars.”

The Lex has also become a theater where stage actors from Lexington who have made it to Broadway, national tours, and regional theatres can come home to perform for friends, loved ones, and local theater fans who love seeing hometown kids made good.

“To be able to be close to home and to perform where I did all of my dance recitals with Diana Evans School of Dance, it’s so full circle,” said Haley Fish, who’s been in Broadway productions such as “Cats” and “Gypsy” and starred in The Lex’s 2022 production of “Chicago.” “It’s like younger me meeting current me. There’s so much of my spirit and my energy and my soul trapped in the Opera House, and it’s like I get to re-meet that and be like, ‘Girl, it all works out.’”

Joining Fish in this year’s “Concert with the Stars” cast is Darian Sanders, who was in the first edition of the show as a local talent sharing the stage with bona fide Broadway star Jonathan Groff of “Frozen” and “Hamilton” fame. He has since gone on to a professional career, currently on tour with “The Lion King.”

“A lot of people can’t afford or can’t get to New York,” Sanders said. “A lot of people can’t get around the country to see me perform. So, to be able to be back in our hometown and be able to be local for people, it’s a big deal.”

Over the past decade, The Lex has welcomed home other talents including Laura Bell Bundy (“Legally Blonde: The Musical,” “Hairspray”) and Colton Ryan (“Dear Evan Hansen,” “New York, New York”), who like Sanders first participated in “Concert with the Stars” as a local talent, and others.

Franklin Smith, the Lex’s artistic director, can appreciate this particular role the Theatre Company plays as she is also a homegrown artist who went off to work in national tours and Broadway productions including “A Chorus Line” and “The Little Mermaid.”

“I was one of those kids too from Kentucky who had this big Broadway dream,” Franklin Smith said. “Getting to go outside of this space and experiencing other theaters like this, and then wanting to bring that home ... It just means the absolute world to me.”

Rounding out the stars in this year’s concert is Hayley Podschun, who Lex adherents will remember from the 2023 production of “The Sound of Music,” where she played Maria. She will be joined in the concert by the student performers who were her von Trapp children in that production, highlighting a bit of a departure for this “Concert with the Stars.”

While past editions have focused on the stars, key moments from their careers, and previewing the upcoming Lex season, the 10th anniversary will look back at the decade that has been for The Lex.

“We are revisiting every single show we’ve produced here, and it’s with Darian and Hayley, and Haley leading a lot of the numbers,” Franklin Smith said. “When you go back to the beginning and you walk through and you look at just how many things we’ve done, like it’s just so humbling.”

Preparing for the show has brought back a flood of memories of collaborators, shows, moments, victories, and even frustrations overcome for Franklin Smith and Smith, the Lex’s producing director. Sharing in that joy are Sanders and Fish who take a lot of hometown pride in what The Lex has become.

In those 10 years, it has grown from “Concert with the Stars” and one summer production to a company with its own extensive facility on Alexandria Drive, two summer shows, a holiday production, “Concert with the Stars,” and other productions and performance outlets.

Fish says in national professional acting circles the Company has gained a reputation as a great professional, nurturing place to perform. And Sanders treasures his part in the growth of the company and role in launching careers in addition to his own. Beyond local performers, many of the student performers in Lex productions have gone on to professional work on and beyond Broadway.

“I’m encouraged for the next 10-plus years. My dream for ‘Concert with the Stars’ is that a light bulb goes off in the Lexington community and they understand that we’ve had 10 years of greatness,” Sanders said. And if Lexington invests just a bit more in The Lex, “how much further could we go, and how much better could we make this experience? Because, it’s already phenomenal.”

Lexington Theatre Company’s Concert with the Stars

When: Jan. 11 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Lexington Opera House, 401 W. Short St.

Tickets: Ticketmaster.com or 859-233-3535.