After the pleasant doldrums of summer, the lights are back on at Milwaukee’s cultural venues and performing arts organizations. And there will be many things to see. At the heart of our annual Fall Arts Guide is a comprehensive calendar of coming events in theater, dance, classical music and visual arts, annotated with recommendations from our critics, for the months of September through November.
Looking deeper than dates and venues, we also look at four cultural institutions of long standing in the Milwaukee area. Two of them, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO) and the Waukesha Civic Theatre (WCT), have flourished for more than half a century and have successfully responded to the needs of our community. The MSO, which gets more headlines in the Milwaukee area, is currently engaged in the search for its next music director. Meanwhile, the WCT continues to be an anchor in the redevelopment of Downtown Waukesha by providing a valuable stage for productions far removed from the epicenter of Milwaukee theater.
Since opening in the 1980s, the Haggerty Museum of Art on the Marquette University campus has often been overshadowed by the larger Milwaukee Art Museum. Yet, the Haggerty has built an impressive permanent collection and a roster of locally and socially engaged programming. Now beginning its 29th season, Wild Space Dance Company remains dedicated to site-specific performances that cast light on the natural and built landscape of Milwaukee along with the unique history of our city.
David Luhrssen, Editor, Fall Arts Guide 2016
John Schneider, Assistant Editor, Falls Arts Guide 2016
