This Lexington theatre group defies odds, continues to deliver Broadway’s next stars

Ten years later, Lyndy Franklin Smith and Jeromy Smith can still hear the reactions to their announcement that The Lexington Theatre Company (The Lex) would debut with the dance spectacular, “42nd Street.”

“‘That’s too big,’” Lyndy recalls people saying. “‘Don’t start with something so big.’”

Jeromy recalls, “the number of people that said to us, ‘you can’t make that your first show.’”

But given the couple’s shared history with the show and its status as a quintessential Broadway story, “42nd Street” seemed like the obvious place to start — particularly to people who knew them.

“It felt right to me,” says Kristen Beth Williams, who has known the Smiths from the earliest days of their professional careers. “We all came up through Music Theater Wichita, and I love seeing them paying it forward in this way, with the educational component and bringing professional theater to Lexington.

“I was not surprised at all to see that they started with ‘42nd Street,’ and I was really thrilled when they were like, we’re gonna do ‘42nd Street’ for our 10th anniversary.”

And that was before Williams was asked to come to Lexington to play the key role of Dorothy Brock in the production which celebrates 10 years as a local theatre company that has defied odds and even a global pandemic to make it a decade and thrive.

“I’ve worked at a lot of theaters that didn’t have a third or fourth or fifth season, where they get started … and then it sort of falls apart,” says Broadway veteran Ron Bohmer, who starred in the The Lex’s second season production of “Mary Poppins” and is returning to play harried producer Julian Marsh in the new “42nd Street,” July 10 to 13 at the Lexington Opera House. Of his first Lex engagement he says, “It was clear that you guys had the passion to continue and make it all happen, that you knew what you were doing.”

Among the company members in that first production of “42nd Street” was Cynthiana native Elizabeth McGuire, then on her first professional contract, who has returned to The Lex several times as her career has blossomed and plays the leading role of Peggy Sawyer in this production.

“I was a bit of a whipper snapper, and I loved watching the professionals have their process, because that was really my first exposure to that in a professional setting,” McGuire says.

How is the Lexington Theatre Company different?

That was an early demonstration of The Lex achieving some of its goals: to be a professional theater company in Lexington that would present productions with professional talent and provide a first stage for budding professionals. Among its many success stories is alum and Tony Award-nominated actor Colton Ryan, who has come back to perform in the company’s popular Concert with the Stars.

It also aimed to provide a stage home for professional actors based in Lexington who wanted to stay here instead of moving to cities like New York or Chicago. There had not been a Lexington-based theater company employing actors who were members of Actors Equity, the stage actors union, for several decades before The Lex opened.

“Lyndy and Jeromy have created a company that has helped me grow as an artist and fulfill the dream of a professional Broadway experience right here in Lexington,” said Lexington-based actor Karyn Czar, who plays Maggie Jones in “42nd Street.” To Czar, lyrics from “Mary Poppins,” her first show with The Lex, epitomize the couple and the company: “If you reach for the stars all you get are the stars, but we’ve found a whole new spin. If you reach for the heavens, you get the stars thrown in.”

Like McGuire, Lyndy is a Central Kentucky native who dreamed of a career on stage and she made it to Broadway where her credits include dance captain for the 2006 revival of “A Chorus Line.” Both she and Jeromy, who she met when they were both students at Oklahoma City University, used their time in New York to gain broad behind-the-scenes experience in theater. That and experiences at regional summer stock theaters such as Music Theatre Wichita in Kansas inspired them to try to create the same experience for Lexington. They announced their intentions in 2014, launching with the first of their annual Concert with the Stars shows in January 2015 and that first production of “42nd Street” in July.

“With sweeping dance numbers performed on a Broadway-sized scale (big, epic, go-for-it explosions of glittery, tap-shoed strutting), charismatic performances by actual Broadway stars performing alongside local stars, and technical excellence in scenic, lighting and costume design, the company’s inaugural production ushers in a new era of possibility for theater in Lexington,” Herald-Leader critic Candace Chaney wrote in her review of the show.

“The show meant so much to us, and it represents all things Broadway, it represents all things musical theater,” Lyndy, artistic director and the director of both “42nd Street” productions says. “We wanted that to be the first showing for us of what we could do and the things that we could create for Lexington.”

How the Lexington Theatre Company has grown

Actors who were with them in those early days can see those dreams manifest now, especially in The Lexington Theatre Company’s headquarters at 2323 Alexandria Drive which includes a rehearsal space that they also intend to use as a small theatre, a costume shop, scenery workshop, offices and more. It is a long way from those early nomadic days where the company was searching for rehearsal space wherever they could find it and had other operations spread all over the city, including the Smiths’ home.

Since 2015, the company has gone from one production to three — two in the summer and one holiday-season offering — other performance outlets, and has vastly expanded its education offerings, in part by refocusing on education during the COVID-19 pandemic, when The Lex was unable to produce shows.

Reflecting on the last decade and why The Lex has succeeded where theater companies often fail, the Smiths cite factors such as enthusiastic, talented collaborators, support from professionals in and outside of Central Kentucky, and an unflagging work ethic. They and others also cite supporters willing to invest in something that had not been done in Lexington in a long time.

“So much of what I’ve done out in the world is because I got my start here at The Lex, and it’s really good soil here,” McGuire says. “When you buy a ticket to The Lex, you’re not just buying a ticket and showing up to a show. You’re sowing into your community and sowing into the artists that you’re watching and the team that’s been working on the show. It’s like a financial deposit that spreads out and becomes something so much bigger, and I’ve lived that.”

In many ways, including The Lex having its own building, things feel ahead of schedule to the Smiths. But then again, Lyndy says, “I’m still excited about everything that’s to come, because it feels like we’re just beginning.”

42nd Street

The Lexington Theatre Company production

Where: Lexington Opera House, 401 W. Short Street

When: Six performances, July 10-13

Buy tickets: lexingtontheatrecompany.org