Broadway Legend Bernadette Peters to Open Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Associated Bank Theater Center with Headlining Concert Performance October 11, 2025

Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s $80.1 Million Modernized and Expanded Home features Three State-of-the-Art Theaters, Dedicated Education and Engagement Center, and Increased Accessibility for All Audiences

March 18, 2025 (Milwaukee, WI) – Milwaukee Repertory Theater, one of the nation’s first regional theaters and Wisconsin’s largest performing arts organization, today announced that three-time Tony Award recipient Bernadette Peters will headline a special concert to mark the grand opening of the Associated Bank Theater Center, its new home for entertaining, provoking, and engaging theater, October 11, 2025.

Ms. Peters, critically acclaimed star of stage, film, television and recordings, will perform celebrated selections of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, among others in the new Ellen & Joe Checota Powerhouse Theater. One of the Center’s three state-of-the-art performance spaces, the reimagined Checota Powerhouse Theater is designed with a flexible stage that converts from a thrust to a proscenium and cutting-edge technology, allowing Milwaukee Rep to create productions that can easily transfer to any stage in the country, including Broadway.

“The opening of the Associated Bank Theater Center is a landmark moment for both Milwaukee Rep and our entire region,” said Mark Clements, Artistic Director. “The Center is more than just a building; it embodies our community’s steadfast dedication to the arts and its power to inspire transformative change. Celebrating this occasion with a special concert featuring the incomparable Bernadette Peters is sure to make it a night to remember as we embark on this exciting new chapter.”

Following the grand opening concert, Milwaukee Rep’s 2025/2026 Season will launch in the new Center in November with Come From Away, a large-scale musical performed on the mainstage Ellen & Joe Checota Powerhouse Theater. Building on the theater’s long practice of staging a wide variety of productions across genres, from new plays to American classics and Shakespearean epics to full-scale musicals, the new season features an eclectic lineup of 12 plays. The regional premiere of Ayad Akhtar‘s McNeal, following its 2024 Broadway run, will open the updated black box Herro-Franke Studio Theater in February 2026. Other productions to be staged across the three theaters include The Lehman Trilogy, August Wilson‘s The Piano Lesson, and Ain’t Misbehavin’.

Public events are being planned throughout the 2025/26 Season to welcome the Milwaukee community into the new space and connect audiences of all ages with the magic of theater culminating in a free-for-all Open House Block Party in June 2026 when the entire Complex is complete, featuring curated performances, speakers, facility tours, and family games and events for the whole community.

Tickets to the Grand Opening concert with Bernadette Peters range from $100-$450 and will be made available for purchase to the over 600 individual and institutional donors who contributed to the success of the $80.1 Million Powering Milwaukee capital campaign before going on sale to the general public May 5, 2025.

The Associated Bank Theater Center
Milwaukee Rep’s capital project provides critical infrastructure updates to the theater’s more than a century old space, as well as updates to back-of-house and production technology to support increased performance capacity. The modernized and expanded 152,500-square-foot Associated Bank Theater Center, designed by EUA and theater consultants Fisher Dachs Associates, encompasses the completely gutted and reimagined historic former powerplant that has been home to the theater since 1987, and a newly constructed glass building that for the first time, connects all theaters in the complex to the shared multi-level lobby.

In addition to the Ellen & Joe Checota Powerhouse Theater, the complex includes the Herro-Franke Studio Theater, an intimate black box space designed for innovative and experimental works, and the Stackner Cabaret, a cabaret space renovated in 2018 by Uihlein-Wilson Architects for smaller productions and special events featuring a full pre-show dining experience.

Beyond the performance spaces, the Center houses the new 2,700-square-foot Herzfeld Foundation Education & Engagement Center, with classroom, rehearsal, and performance spaces that provide expanded educational programming for students and community members of all ages. Connecting all the theater and education spaces across the complex is the new Sandra & William Haack Lobby which includes pre- and post-show gathering spaces, a patron lounge, fully accessible restrooms, a gift shop, and bars with food and beverage offerings.

About Milwaukee Repertory Theater
Milwaukee Repertory Theater is one of the nation’s first regional theaters and Wisconsin’s largest performing arts organization, presenting a variety of world-class theater experiences that entertain, provoke, and engage audiences. Led by Ellen & Joe Checota Executive Director Chad Bauman and Artistic Director Mark Clements, Milwaukee Rep is as an anchoring civic, economic and cultural institution in the downtown Milwaukee Theater District. Through staging new plays, beloved classics, compelling dramas, and full-scale musicals from emerging and established voices; its John D. Lewis New Play Development Program that incubates new work from a wide spectrum of innovative voices; education initiatives that eliminate barriers to the arts; and community engagement programs that bring people together to explore new perspectives, Milwaukee Rep inspires meaningful dialogue and enacts positive change within the Milwaukee community. With the opening of its new home in the Associated Bank Theater Center in Fall 2025, Milwaukee Rep will deepen and expand its reach with three state-of-the-art, fully accessible theaters, a dedicated education and engagement center, and a variety of welcoming community spaces. For more information, please visit www.MilwaukeeRep.com.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.