Rachel Sorce, Executive Director of the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center
In addition to her love of the performing arts, Rachel Sorce brought more than two decades of communications and management experience to her role at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center. Sorce previously served as SMPAC’s marketing director and is a founding SMPAC council board director. SMPAC brings musical theatre, dance, professional musicians and more to its stage each season.
Sorce’s connections to her community runs deep. “I am a native South Milwaukeean,” she says, “born and raised here, graduated from South Milwaukee High School in the 1980s well before the current 6-12 campus was built, including the 786-seat professionally managed theater.” That theater is SMPAC’s home. As for her arts background, Sorce explains that her “parents influenced my interest in the arts and in particular, music. I played the trumpet in high school and in college. While I initially chose a career path focused on for-profit marketing communications, I realigned my stars to work in non-profit arts management and nurture the SMPAC’s positive impact in my own community.” A welcome aspect of her current position, she says, is “seeing the arts bring people together, strengthen their social bonds, build confidence and pride, inspire, inform and entertain.”
Editor's Note: This article is part of our annual Fall Arts Guide. For the 2018 Fall Arts Guide, we interviewed six women that have founded or taken a leading role within arts institutions in the Milwaukee area to learn about their experiences. Read more of the Fall Arts Guide here.
