Milwaukee Rep’s New Production Facility Takes Center Stage
Photo by Marty Peters
There’s no business like show business, and for Milwaukee Repertory Theater, business is growing. For years, sets, props and costumes spilled out of the Milwaukee Rep production space into nearby Stiemke Studio, making the theater unusable for months at a time. The small square footage, alongside the push for grandiose set design, led The Rep’s team to break ground on a new production center in Wauwatosa this past January.
“It was just not sustainable, unless we found a place that was much larger than what we had,” says Chad Bauman, executive director at The Rep. “We needed a larger space because we were doing more and more productions, more performances, had larger sets, and larger physical productions than we ever had before.”
The former production space was built in the mid 1980s. At the time, The Rep’s sets, props and costumes were manageably made and contained in the existing space. As the company grew, the demand for larger and more intricate set design also grew. The growth culminated in a 2016 production of A Christmas Carol where the production team had to rent out a warehouse that served as a temporary production center.
Photo by Marty Peters
The new 35,000-square-foot facility will house a full prop shop, costume shop, scene shop, paint shop, electric shop and other spaces where their team of IATSE union builders can make magic.
One of The Rep’s season opening plays, The Coast Starlight, will be the first to feature work created in the new facility.
“From the audience’s perspective, the floor will have opaque lines like a chess board,” says Jared Clarkin, production designer at The Rep. “But once the show begins, each of those lines will light up with different colors, at different times. The whole floor will come to life with color and movement to support the storytelling in the play.”
“We are a producing theatre company,” says Bauman. “By and large what you see on our stages is actually created here by hundreds of local artisans. It’s kind of different from our Broadway series (a series of touring Broadway shows) where the sets are built somewhere else in the country and it comes here. Everything that you see on our stages is actually built here, made by Milwaukee based artisans.”
Photo by Marty Peters
In addition to bringing The Rep’s stages to life every season, the team also makes sets, props, costumes and stage design elements for theaters that don’t have an in-house production team.
“Right now we are hired by theaters around the country to also build their sets and set pieces and props and costumes,” says Bauman. “We imagine that that will expand and we’ll be able to offer those services to local theaters and performing arts centers as well.”
As for the old production space, it will still be put to good use. “In our current facility we have no classrooms, no training facilities, no performance spaces for our education programs,” says Bauman. “
The Rep’s behemoth art education department serves 20,000 students from across the midwest. The space from the scene shop and paint shop will be converted into The Herzfeld Foundation Education & Engagement Center, where students can rehearse, workshop and perform in a dedicated space.
