Board Co-Chair and Founder

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Louise H. Beard is a Broadway and film producer from Birmingham, Alabama.  She has a Tony Award for producing A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder in 2013.  Other Tony-nominated shows she produced on include A Christmas Story, The Musical and Dames at Sea.  In London, Olivier-nominated shows she produced on include Dreamgirls (2017) and Company (2019) which won The Olivier Award for Best Revival of a Musical.

 

Louise was a co-producer on Blues For Willadean, the film of Del Shores’ NAACP Award-winning play The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife.  In 2012, she formed a new productions company with Del Shores and Emerson Collins as Beard Collins Shores Productions.  Under this company, she executive produced the film of the play Southern Baptist Sissies and A Very Sordid Wedding, the marriage equality-themed sequel to Sordid Lives.  She served as an executive producer for all of Del’s standup comedy specials including Del Shores: Sordid Confessions, Del Shores: Naked. Sordid. Reality. and Six Characters In Search of a Play.  

 

Louise also executive produced the world premiere production of Del Shores’ play Yellow, selected as "Critic’s Choice" by the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly and Backstage and winner of the LA Drama Critic’s Circle Award for Best Production.  She is the executive producer for the Los Angeles and Dallas premieres of Del's newest play, This Side of Crazy.

 

Louise also has her own company, SwineSTARS Productions.  In her native Birmingham, she founded the Time Step Studio for tap dancing and over 2000 people appeared in her productions at the Alabama Theatre through the years.  A graduate of Birmingham-Southern College with a degree in church music and organ, Louise is married to John Beard, and they have two children, Graham and Lanford.

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