After helping run the Children’s Theatre for years, she leaves a legacy of kindness

Children’s Theatre of Charlotte’s managing director, Linda Reynolds, admits she’s partial to musicals like CTC’s “Beauty and the Beast.” And she remembers the first time someone flew across the stage for “Peter Pan.”

These are memories she’ll cherish as she retires from Children’s Theatre in August after 17 years.

Reynolds started at the theater in 2003, two years before it relocated from Morehead Street to ImaginOn uptown. She shares leadership responsibility with Artistic Director Adam Burke.

Reynolds works with the board of directors and oversees the marketing and sales departments. She also provides support to development, finance and human resources. During her time at the theater company, she’s built relationships across the community.

“Her legacy will be the stewardship and dedication to the stability, vision and mission of the Theatre, and her focus on people and especially children,” said theater board chair Tim Rogers. “The Kindness Project, the brainchild of both Linda and Adam, was created back in 2016 in recognition of the negativity that was beginning to envelop the nation. The Kindness Project was created to inspire children to see the good that is possible in the world and take action when possible to promote the good that is inherent in humanity.

“This is the essence of Linda.”

Children’s Theatre offers educational programs and public, school and touring performances to children in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina – 250,000 theater experiences, according to the organization’s 2018-2019 Annual Report.

Reynolds moved to Charlotte in the early 1970s to attend Kings College. She spent more than 20 years with First Union National Bank (now Wells Fargo) in training, human resources and operations. She also worked at United Way of Central Carolinas for five years, developing the Leadership Giving program and managing the general campaign.

Reynolds hopes retirement will mean waking up later than her usual 4:30 a.m. She also hopes to brush up on her rusty golf game and spend time with her new granddaughter.

How has children’s theater changed since 2003?

I think it’s really been a true metamorphosis. There was a time when theater for young audiences was just viewed as cute entertainment. Now there’s a much greater appreciation that this is theater created for young audiences. And when it’s done well, which is certainly our intent, these plays and educational programs really help young people to become marvelous adults.

What stands out to you during your tenure with the Children’s Theatre?

There’s a piece we did, “Jackie & Me” — (about) Jackie Robinson. It was a very powerful story, but part of what was gratifying was to see the multi-generational attendance. It was grandfathers grabbing their sons and grandsons to experience that story together.

It’s walking out the door after a really long day and you meet a young girl skipping into the building with her theater class notebook. She just can’t wait to be there.

We invited a group of preschool students to come in and watch a show and talk to us about it. At the end of... a lively Q&A session, this one little girl looked up at an African American woman who was in the cast, and the little girl started to rub her own arms. And she said very quietly, “We have the same skin.”

What program makes you most proud?

I’m probably most proud of The Kindness Project, our long-term commitment to commissioning a series of new plays that show children and families the impact of being kind in today’s world. It gets at the heart of who we are as an organization – insightful, relevant and inspiring. We’re empowering even the youngest children to understand they can change the world.

What have you learned from leading an organization like the Children’s Theatre?

What am I still learning? If you mean, how do you lead an organization through a pandemic, I think I’ve said, “I just don’t know,” more times in the past six weeks than I’ve said in my entire career. I hate that. I’ve always been the kind of person who wants to know everything to hopefully make some good decisions and help facilitate a collaborative and inspired organizational workplace. I’ve really learned about the incredible intricacies of a professional producing theater. There are thousands of moving parts.

How does planning come into play at the theater?

The long-term planning that has to be done with theater is just immense. I’ve often described what we do like a giant Jenga game – whether it’s planning from the artistic side or community side or the donor side — everything has got to fit together and prop each other up in order to do what we do.

Producing theater is an intricate business. It should look seamless to our audience and we hope it does. But there’s a whole lot of proverbial “paddling beneath the water” in order to make all that happen.

This story is part of an Observer underwriting project with the Thrive Campaign for the Arts, supporting arts journalism in Charlotte.

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This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 7:00 AM.