Ginger Poole took a job as the education director for Mill Mountain Theatre in the summer of 2008, not knowing the ways she would soon make history.
Just months later when the professional theater nearly closed its doors for good, Poole stayed on as its sole employee, credited with steering this longtime Roanoke mainstay back into the black. Though she had reservations, the nonprofit’s board had every confidence, leading her to become the first woman to serve as Mill Mountain’s producing artistic director. In that role, she guided the theater through another bout with peril during the COVID-19 shutdowns of 2020.
As MMT begins its 60th season, Poole has decided that it’s time for the theater to learn how to fly on without her. Monday, the 53-year-old Poole announced her plans to retire from her role.
“We are financially healthy, we are artistically healthy. We’ve got a fantastic staff and an incredible board of directors,” she said. “I felt like this is as close to the stars aligning for me to truly leave the theater better than I ever found it, and tie a big red bow on it and pass it to the next person.” Announcing now allows plenty of time for the board’s search committee to find her replacement, whom she hopes to have time to work with before departing for good from Mill Mountain’s second-floor offices in downtown Roanoke’s Center in the Square.
“She is certainly at the top of her craft and she has left the theater in terrific shape,” said Cynthia Lawrence, who recently concluded a term as board president and will lead the search committee for a new director. “It is certainly much better now than when she found it.”
Her impending exit arrives on a very literal high note. Mill Mountain Theatre’s most recent production, “Elf, The Musical,” surpassed the record for ticket sales previously set by “The Sound of Music” to become the top-grossing show in MMT’s history.
Though tallies aren’t final, the show sold more than $200,000 in tickets, Poole said. It represents a triumphant culmination of a comeback strategy made necessary by a six-figure operating loss in 2022. That strategy was to put on a “Season of Song” consisting only of musicals.
“We know Roanoke enjoys its musicals,” Lawrence said.
“It was a purposeful choice,” Poole said. “We know as a regional theater that it’s not our job to deliver that type of season every year. We had to do that to fix some stuff that didn’t work the previous year and it delivered for us.” The Diamond Jubilee season sees the return of the theater’s usual range, from Disney to Shakespeare to Harper Lee to “Cabaret.”
Replacing Poole won’t be easy, not just because of her business and artistic acumen, but because of “what a thought leader she is in the industry,” Lawrence said. The ways she’s found to navigate challenges and crises “has been exemplary not only for our community, but for the theater industry,” making her someone sought out for consultation by decision-makers. “We’re very proud of her.”
Though she appreciated the compliment, Poole responded that her innovations have been “coming from a survival place, not from an old wise sage place.”
Yet it’s not just the theater board singing her praises. “Mill Mountain Theatre has accomplished some amazing things since Ginger took over its leadership,” said Todd Ristau, founder of the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University, which in partnership with Mill Mountain puts on an annual winter festival of new plays, as well as Overnight Sensations, in which playwrights, directors and actors team up to produce six short plays from scratch in a single day’s time. “I am so grateful for Ginger not only as a collaborator, but also as a friend and colleague.”
“A person like Ginger, who is totally committed to the community, patrons of the theater, and staff, is very difficult to find,” said Jim Sears, who retired in 2023 after 30 years as president of Center in the Square. “I can’t think of anyone more committed to their purpose in life than Ginger.”
That commitment kept Mill Mountain Theatre from vanishing beneath hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt in 2009.
“Through that period, when we were dark, and trying to reorganize the business plan, her dedication kept the theater going, gave us that time, to actually reimagine what the theater could be in a new economy,” said Lawrence, who served on the board during that rocky period. “We had business experience but we did not understand the operations of the theater. She was able to bring all sorts of money-saving ideas and creative new ways to use our resources. She gave us the confidence to say, yes, I think we can do this.”
A South Carolina native, Poole did not grow up with ambitions to run a theater, or even perform in musicals. With a background in dance, she was studying for a degree in early childhood education at University of West Georgia when she successfully tried out for the Atlanta Falcons cheerleading squad. She has joked that instead of a sorority, she was in the NFL.
Her senior year, she took an acting class on a whim, and discovered her calling, setting her on a path that would see her become one of the main cast members of Flat Rock Playhouse, North Carolina’s official state theater. She first visited Roanoke, and Mill Mountain Theatre, in fall 2006 to play a part in a farce called “Don’t Dress for Dinner.”
“I knew Mill Mountain Theatre, but I did not know Roanoke,” Poole said. “I fell in love with Roanoke.”
She joined MMT’s staff in 2008 as education director, to run the classes and camps for children and youth. However, the theater’s long-standing debt problems came to a boil. In January 2009 the theater’s board president at the time, Roanoke businessman Jack Avis, stood on the Trinkle MainStage and informed the staff that they no longer had jobs. From the audience, Poole heckled him.
In hindsight, that tense first meeting between Avis and Poole looks like a meet-cute worthy of a romantic comedy. They wed in 2011, and have an 11-year-old daughter, Anne Tillison Avis.
But at the time, Mill Mountain Theatre seemed bound for extinction. The board wasn’t aware that money was still coming in for the classes Poole expected to teach. They reached a decision to hold the classes. Meanwhile, Poole taught the board how the theater operated, allowing them to step in as volunteers when no money existed to hire new staff. This stripped-down version of MMT worked to retire the debt and slowly, cautiously bring stage productions back, until MMT could once more offer full-year seasons.
Poole fondly remembers the first plays the theater mounted as it rebounded, the musical “Annie Jr.” and the comedy “Greater Tuna,” and the support that Roanoke audiences gave. After year-round seasons returned, “it kind of compresses from that moment on — the number of people coming out to audition grew, the number of shows we were able to produce from season to season grew. Thank goodness, finally the staff grew,” Poole said.
During the COVID-19 shutdown, and the financial considerations that required, “we were able to take that pause and bring a healthier work week to our staff, and we got insurance back for our employees,” she said.
When Poole does depart, “it is going to require the search committee to really think about what the model needs to be going forward. We’re going to be really thoughtful, based on the candidates that come forward, we’re going to be really thoughtful about what the skill sets are,” Lawrence said. She noted that some theaters separate the executive and artistic director positions. “We’ll be looking at all options, just depending on what we think the theater resources will support, and what we think the community will support, and what will be best for the long-term health of the theater.”
Poole doesn’t have specific plans for what she’ll do next. Perhaps she’ll “just take a breath … just have a pause, and then resurface and be wide open to opportunities,” she said.
“I hope she isn’t leaving the arts and theater world,” Sears said. “That would be an impossible void to fill.”
