In the 1940s, local theater was almost non-xistent in Milwaukee. That all changed a decade later, when local performer and businesswoman Mary John founded the company now known as the Milwaukee Rep. It was one of the first regional theatre companies featuring local performers instead of actors bussed in from New York. It was part of a larger movement happening in cities around the country.
"[The founders of this movement] wanted to create theater in a community, for a community, with resident-based artists... They ended up building our first theater, which was the Fred Miller Theater Company and launching what would become Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, as the first professional, regional theater here in the State of Wisconsin," says Chad Bauman, executive director of the Rep.
John recently died, at the age of 96. But during her lifetime, her theatre company went from a small group of local performers, to a regional institution.
"Everything that you see that she started the company with, the thought process that we could actually create here in Milwaukee - that we could export work, not import work from New York, but actually export work all over the country and the world - has come true," says Bauman.
