CULTURE

Justin Ball acknowledges falling for a semi-bluff when he became Stage Door Theatre’s executive director in September 2021.

He was drawn to the Dunwoody theater’s intimate 125-seat space— “There’s something about being 6 feet away from an actor that really allows for greater catharsis”— and its deep community roots.

But Ball, an avid poker player, found a short-stacked financial infrastructure compared with what he expected of a nearly 50-year-old nonprofit.

The theater at the Dunwoody Cultural Arts Center also was going through an identity crisis. Stage Door let longtime Artistic Director Robert Egizio go in 2020, changed its name from “Players” to “Theatre” in 2021 and struggled to fill seats when a new artistic director replaced Golden Age Broadway shows with Shakespeare and other classics.

That artistic director left in late 2021. Ball, 43, has the title of producing artistic director as he tries to expand the theater’s reach before its 50th season in 2023-24.

Ball was a safe bet. After growing up in a New York suburb, reflected in his omnipresent Yankees baseball cap, he earned theater degrees at Trinity and Brooklyn colleges. He got a taste of Broadway in artistic production at the Manhattan Theatre Club, taught at New York University and led the Sharon Playhouse in Connecticut.

He and his now-ex-partner had a daughter in 2016 and moved to Atlanta in 2017. When she was ready for kindergarten, he was done being a stay-at-home dad.

“I don’t believe my job is to come in with the best ideas in the room but to figure out who has them, cultivate them and harness them,” Ball says.

Stage Door is focusing on three areas:

Artistic programming, which includes family-friendly fare and at least one serious drama in a five-show main stage season, plus a series spotlighting outside performers such as improv group Dad’s Garage.