Photo by Michaela Beal
Kevin Giglinto
Kevin Giglinto
New Jersey-born Kevin Giglinto “fell in love with Milwaukee” while a student at Marquette University. Giglinto had many reasons to return to our city since graduation day, even before becoming president and CEO of the Marcus Performing Arts Center (MPAC) last summer. Asked why he traded his senior vice presidency at Washington’s Kennedy Center for his new position at MPAC, he replies, “I’ve spent so much time in Milwaukee. I’m very much a Midwesterner. Being employed to run this institution is really exciting for me.”
His Midwest credentials come from 30 some years in Chicago, many of them spent working in the early days of ecommerce, culminating in his role as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first ecommerce director and digital marketing strategist. That road led to the Kennedy Center where he guided digital strategy and audience engagement.
“The work is similar,” he says, comparing the Kennedy Center to the MPAC. Only now, he has “an opportunity to lead an institution in a city I really love.”
When the Performing Arts Center, as it was known for many years, opened in 1969, the white modernist edifice on the banks of the Milwaukee River was often thought of as the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s home with little else to offer. Despite an increasing variety of programming from the ‘70s on, it took a long time for the PAC to shake off its reputation as a building many Milwaukeeans seldom had reason to visit. The MSO’s departure for its own facility, the Bradley Symphony Center (opened in 2021), “was a strategic challenge” for MPAC, Giglinto says, adding that his predecessors rose to the occasion. “I stepped into a place with a good board and an outstanding team with a vision of where we are going.”
Unique Skills
Giglinto brings some unique skills to his job. While his degrees from Marquette and Loyola are in business, he came from a musical family and played in several rock bands. He is aware of “what it takes to bring something to the stage, the craft and the artistry, that audiences love.” When the Berlin Wall fell, he joined the Peace Corps and went to Romania, where the education in Eastern Europe he received at Marquette proved useful as he helped shift a state-run economy to private enterprise. He continued in Romania working for USAID. “I was the only marketing expert in Romania for many years,” he says.
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At the Kennedy Center, he oversaw an institution that welcomed classical music and jazz, hip-hop and musical theater, comedy and more—much like MPAC. “Milwaukee is an incredibly diverse city and I want to make sure that the artists we bring reflect that diversity,” Giglinto says. “That is the trajectory I inherited. It’s what we did at the Kennedy Center and the strategy here is very similar: how do you become a cultural destination where people can experience art as a community.”
With the MSO’s departure, the Broadway Series became MPAC’s box office anchor in the main room, Uihlein Hall; the children’s theater company First Stage continues to occupy the smaller Todd Wehr Theater; likewise, the Florentine Opera’s main season runs at Wilson Theater at Vogel Hall. The changes at Uihlein Hall left room on the calendar for performing artists of all sorts, including jazz singer-composer Cécile McLorin Salvan (Jan. 27), illusionist Bill Blagg (Feb. 2), classical-hip-hop duo Black Violin (Feb. 9) and the Dance Theatre of Harlem (Feb. 14).
Although Milwaukee County owns the building, MPAC is a nonprofit organization responsible for maintaining as well as programming its halls. Fund raising is inevitably part of Giglinto’s job. “It’s an old building that needs some rethinking to evolve into a campus as accessible as it can be,” he explains. “There are still acoustical and stage mechanical things that need to be done and more accessible pathways making it a better cultural destination. The ultimate goal is to serve the community.”
Giglinto has found Milwaukee incredibly welcoming and has enjoyed working with county and city leaders, “incredibly thoughtful partners,” he adds. MPAC’s central location makes it a crucial component in any plans for developing Milwaukee’s Downtown, just as the Performing Arts Center was when first opened in 1969.
