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626 E. Kilbourn Avenue, Suite 802 / Milwaukee, WI 53202 (Administrative Office) / 414.347.1685 / fax 414.347.1690
©2013 Milwaukee Public Theatre. All Rights Reserved.
Board
Programs
Milwaukee Arts Board
CAMPAC/Milwaukee County
Wisconsin Arts Board with the
National Endowment for the Arts
Brewers Community Fund
Elizabeth Elser Doolittle Trust
Donald and Barbara Abert Fund of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Since its founding in 1974 as a tiny two-person company, Milwaukee Public Theatre has grown into a professional outreach touring company employing over 100 artists who provide hundreds of performances at over 1,000 events reaching more than 100,000 people each year in Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin.
Throughout our years we’ve dared to believe that the arts that can empower people of all ages, cultures and abilities to deal with tough social issues—violence prevention, HIV/AIDS, mental health, end-of-life care, paralysis, global climate change, illiteracy—issues that the public often doesn’t want to face.
We’ve worked with hundreds of artists and thousands of children, youth and families to create arts experiences in all arts disciplines—believing that all of us have unique talents, and that we can take back our streets and transform and bring together our fragmented neighborhoods through the power of imagination and creation.
Who We Are
Milwaukee Public Theatre has its roots in a profound belief in the arts as a healing resource that must be available to all people, regardless of age, ability/disability, culture, ethnicity or income level. From our beginnings as a 2-person company of mime/musician/storytellers, we have grown into a multi-faceted outreach arts organization working yearly with over 100 artists from all cultures and arts disciplines and reaching over 100,000 people with highly diverse programming that tours throughout our community and beyond. We aspire to be interactive, thought-provoking and celebrational. Please review our most recent Annual Report.
Most of our work is free-to-the-public, AND we pay our artists as professionals. So we seek public as well as private funding and contracts from organizations to make sure we are able to reach YOU.
And YOU can be part of US. We invite you to join us to help make a difference in our community! Please take a look at all of our programming. If you have a need or an event coming up that you would like to brainstorm with us about, contact us!
We look forward to hearing from you.
A Short History (the first 38 years) of Milwaukee Public Theatre
Originally named the Friends Mime Theatre, the Milwaukee Public Theatre was founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1974 by Dr. Barbara Leigh and Michael John Moynihan.
A recent videoblog from Amy Hart reminisces about Friends Mime Theatre "back in the day"
As one of the region's few professional outreach theatres, the company has created over 400 original productions and touring/outreach events that have traveled to audiences throughout the community, state, region and nation.
Milwaukee Public Theatre (MPT) creates productions that appropriate ancient, traditional and contemporary theatrical forms into new relationships, juxtapositions and collisions of form, subject matter and content.
The productions have included one-person Plays, two-person Pantomimes, original Musical Comedies, Multi-Media Musicals, Videoworks, Historical Epics, and free outdoor Vaudeville and Circus Theatre.
MPT is also unique in its development of work that integrates people with disabilities into theatre arts and works with professional and amateur visual and performing artists of all ages, races, ethnic backgrounds and economic levels.
The Milwaukee Public Theatre's free-to-the-public summer park/community performances, parades and pageants which will see their 40th anniversary in 2014. These productions have the most diverse audience of any arts organization in the city, county or state.
MPT also provides opportunities for employment and training for young Milwaukee performing artists from all cultural backgrounds. Each year the company presents between 400 and 600 public events for 100,000 to 150,000 adults and children of all ages, backgrounds, cultures and abilities.
The company tours and gives performances and workshops throughout Milwaukee County, as well as also creating projects that travel within the state of Wisconsin, the region, the nation, and the North American Continent.
Co-founders Barbara Leigh and Michael John Moynihan with guest musician Renae Richman in Milwaukee Public Theatre's very first production,
A MYTH OF CHANGES. --->
A MYTH OF CHANGES. --->
The use of the word "MYTH" was not in the current habit of being synonymous with the word "LIE", but in the traditional sense MYTH was a typically ancient story dealing with Supernatural Beings, Ancestors, or Heroes that serves as a fundamental and truthful explanation of the worldview of a people, by explaining aspects of the natural world or delin-eating the psychology, customs, or ideals of the society and culture.
Milwaukee Public Theatre maintaims a strong education/outreach component, collaborating with artists of many different cultural backgrounds and media expertise.
Milwaukee Public Theatre workshops can be brought to any site and tailored to fit all ages and abilities and your business, school, community, or personal interests with over 50 professional artists offering a diverse range of activities from which to choose.
Through custom and special events, we work with the business and corporate community to utilize theatrical techniques in the training environment, focusing on such areas as diversity, sensitivity and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Focusing on healing arts and wellness education, we create and present programming on a variety of issues for all ages through workshops, residencies, and touring shows.
Milwaukee Public Theatre had been in residence at Lincoln Middle School of the Arts from 1979-2012. Our administrative/outreach office is now located in the City Housing Authority's Lapham Park Community Building. We now maintain special event, storage and rehearsal space at MPT's Grand Venue Artivity Place in the Shops of Grand Avenue.
Residencies in schools throughout the State have been supported through the Wisconsin Arts Board since the program's inception in the 70's. Over the years MPT has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Wisconsin Humanities Council, Milwaukee County CAMPAC, City of Milwaukee Arts Boards, from private foundations including the Helen Bader Foundation, the Milwaukee Foundation, Faye McBeath Foundation, Greater Milwaukee Foundation and United Performing Arts Fund, as well as numerous community based organizations.
In Memoriam:
- Mrs. LAGrange, AODA Coordinator -