Bernadette Peters to Open Milwaukee Rep's New Associated Bank Theater Center

Three-time Tony Award recipient Bernadette Peters will headline a special concert to mark the grand opening of Milwaukee Repertory Theater's 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.