[BEEP]
You're looking at the dome of the newly opened
overture center for the arts in downtown Madison.
The dome is spectacularly lit each night.
There's a performance.
And during the day, the dome is just as striking,
letting the sun fill the center's rotunda area.
Hello everyone, welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Lowe.
All this week we're celebrating the arts in
Wisconsin, specifically the performance spaces and
places throughout the state.
Tonight we're here at the overture center.
We'll be bringing you more of its magnificence
throughout the program.
We'll also tour a performing arts center in Chippewa
Falls that owes its success to volunteers,
a wasa venue that has revitalized the city's
downtown and a mix of unconventional performance
spaces throughout the state.
Our tour of performance places and spaces is
just ahead in Wisconsin.
[BEEP]
Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the
people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable
and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes,
neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliant Energy, offering energy-saving ideas on the web.
[BEEP]
The overture center is being constructed in two phases.
Work on the first phase took a little more than three years.
The second phase is scheduled for completion in 2006.
Madison philanthropist Jerry Frouci donated the entire
$205 million cost of the center in what is believed
to be the largest single gift to a performing arts
center in the country.
A performing arts center can really add to the character of
a community.
Nearly 100 cities and towns around Wisconsin
have recently developed or are currently developing
a performing arts center.
One example is Jane'sville, which held a grand opening
in early September for its performing arts center.
The city restored the theater from the historic Jane'sville
High School, keeping in place original windows, plaster
work, and light fixtures.
Green Bay also recently restored a city icon into a
performance space.
Producer Joanne Garrett has that story.
[MUSIC]
People kind of had a dream.
I won't say vision, but it would driven to
not have this be right.
[MUSIC]
This theater was built as a centerpiece, the newest latest
greatest technology at that time, the Bell of the Ball.
The Bell of the Ball, the Fox Theater built in Green Bay
in 1930.
It was in Jim, a city treasure.
They packed them in at this movie palace.
But the Fox fell on hard times and changed hands during the
Depression. It became the Bay.
Throughout it all, this theater has been a fixture in
this town for nearly 70 years.
[MUSIC]
It's designed to take you away from your normal life
and bring you to another exotic, beautiful place just
for a small period of time.
Leagaring of PMI, the Theater's Current Management Group.
The style of the theater is called Spanish Atmospheric, the
Gardens of Seville at Twilight.
That's what it's supposed to be.
You can imagine Kingford Man and Queen
Isabella strolling through.
You could ask yourself a question, do I feel lucky?
I've been feeding, we're not in Kansas anymore.
What about that?
We'll always have that.
Listen George Bailey, don't you know me?
[MUSIC]
This place made for memories.
Memories for all the thousands who made their way here.
To me, to Mingle, to have a little fun, a
few hours of pleasure.
I have memories of, as a young child taking the bus downtown
to come to a movie here.
I have spoken to people who speak of their first date,
a high school graduation.
The theater was an integral part of the city, a
part of people's lives.
But over the years, the Bay lost its lustre.
These beautiful walls were painted black, fixtures
like these, Juliet balconies and lights,
were drywalled, were painted over, or taken down.
I remember it as a theater when it was all painted black
and the chairs and your feet sticking to the cement floor.
The glory days were gone.
The Bay couldn't compete with the multiplexes in the malls.
And in 1998, after nearly 70 years, the theater went dark.
Enter Kramer Rock, leader of a dedicated group, formed to
save their dilapidated gym.
Board President of what became the Meyer Theater Corporation.
It looked like hell.
It was a mess.
This thing looked like the wreck of the Hesperus.
How bad was it?
It was actually called public television looking
for Bob Vee's phone number.
It looks gorgeous now.
But in the beginning, Rock's
group didn't even have the funds to turn on the furnace.
We rigged a furnace upside down to keep heat moving.
We won't tell the code people right now about Green Bay.
But just to keep heat in the main part of the
theater, because obviously they shut everything off.
It truly was touch and go.
Over the next four years, this resourceful group
found the resources.
$8 million, including a million dollar bequest from
the Meyer family of Green Bay.
And a mountain of blood, sweat, and tears later.
The jewel has been reclaimed.
It's been really trying, but Jesus has been satisfying.
The place that has been such a fixture here did not fade away.
In fact, it's hoped that the effects of its renovation will
fan outward and illuminate a path for the city,
providing a beacon for the performing arts in Green Bay.
I get excited when I think about what this could be in terms
of a cultural hub, not only for theater performing arts,
but what you could do if we could get an adjoining building
turned into an arts incubator.
Think what could happen if you could bring the symphony
that is housed somewhere else.
And if you could bring a community theater and those
other entities that are working on the trunk of the
car, and have them next door.
And everything would be here.
What a dynamic that would be.
And I think this is going to be the catalyst.
And if you bring people downtown,
capitalism will follow.
I know that sounds mercenary, but if certainly the restaurants
in this area have found a distinct uptick in their
business whenever we're open.
When the lights are on, they're busier than the one we're not.
When the lights are on, the lights are back on in
this beautiful theater.
Cue the applause.
[Applause]
Green Bay is hoping it's recently restored theater will
trigger a downtown revival.
In Wassau, that's already happening.
Producer Art Hackett has that story.
Wassau is about to do what few would expect from
a city of 40,000 people.
The city's performing arts foundation is going to stage
a concert of 160 musicians from Kiev before a sold-out
audience of 1200 people.
The venue is the grand theater.
A 1920s vintage auditorium saved from the wrecking ball in 1987.
A group of community members got title to the building, donated
to them, and raised about $2.5 million to renovate the plaster
work and to redo the seats.
And to make sure that the scenery didn't
fall out of the sky.
But just a few years ago, this orchestra couldn't
have played the grand.
We could put 60 musicians in chairs and stands using all
of the available space on the stage and on both sides so that
some of the musicians weren't even visible from the audience.
And there was no room for the support equipment needed for
things like Broadway shows.
When we did Annie about five years ago, the soundboard
that ran the monitor panel so that the people on
stage could hear the music from the orchestra pit,
had to be outside next to the truck in the
loading dock, underneath Viskuin, plastic wrap.
Except when it was raining, the theater staff could get away
with things like that because the grand stood by itself
with alleyways on three sides.
The design architect, Pete Van Dyke, looked at our facility
and said you're so fortunate, you have this wonderful large
big sister in the middle.
And then you've got two little sisters on either side that
are, they're not the same, but they have a wonderful symmetry.
It's like a bowling trophy.
To solve the space problems, Wassad decided to turn
that bowling trophy of a theater to their advantage.
The space that we are standing in was once an
alley and it's what we did is enclose the spaces
among the three buildings.
On one side of the theater, there's now a hall that can be
used for banquets.
On the other side, there's an art gallery.
The arts facilities take up nearly the entire block that
makes it the arts block.
It's a simple concept with a simple price tag originally
estimated at $5 million.
The sales pitch was simply to allow this theater to
be what it really could be.
In 1995, local attorney Christine Bremer and others
started the ball rolling on what would turn into
a $17 million project.
It was a very easy sale pitch because everyone loves the grand
theater. You have to understand that every school aged child
in the city of Wassau, in the Wassad school district,
and the surrounding school districts have experienced
performing arts in this theater.
Very easy except for people like Linda Lawrence who was on
the city council at the time.
I mean, he had to pound heads, including mine, to get us to
see that we should support him.
When shown the plans for the arts block, she was reluctant.
The arts should be funded by the private sector
or the philanthropist.
It didn't occur to most of us that the city is really
mandated to provide quality of life issues other than
parks and good streets.
And arts really, really are the leader in that area.
The key of symphony drew so many people there was a
waiting list for tickets.
People came early to have a drink at the arts bar.
It's in the banquet hall, which now
doubles as an extra large lobby.
[Music]
Lawrence says the arts block has created a downtown Renaissance.
The project led to the demolition of some old
buildings across the street.
That area was turned into a town square of a sort.
We've had concerts on the square here for several
summers on Wednesday nights and this place is packed.
She considers it part of the arts block, even though
there's really nothing there.
Because it really opens up the area visually.
It opens it up mentally.
We've seen a lot more small shops open and thrive.
And I'm pretty safe when I say
it's because of the success of the arts block, which is
drawing more people back to the downtown as a destination.
[Music]
I'm standing in one of the boxes here in Overture Hall,
which is the crown jewel of the Overture Center.
Architect, Cesar Pelle, not only created the beautiful lines
you see here in Overture Hall, but also incorporated a lot
of state-of-the-art acoustic and architectural effects.
The center's vice president of programming and
development, Michael Goldberg, gave us a tour.
This is Overture Hall itself.
I really love this hall.
For one thing, it's 2000 seats.
It does not look like 2000 seats.
I mean, it just has a very intimate feel to it.
It gives the performer a
sense of relationship and connectedness to the audience.
The hall was built in the horseshoe configuration
to maximize the highest possible quality audio.
[Music]
The organ, which is a spectacular concert organ,
is a gift of pleasant tea rolling.
The wife of our donor, Jerry Fauci, is a very
glorious concert instrument.
It's got 4,040 pipes.
It was built by Clice, the
organ builder in Germany.
[Music]
The concert shell and the organ together is a single unit.
As far as we know, is the largest, movable instrument
in any theater in the world.
The panels in the ceiling, these little flowing ceiling
units, are actually a very, very thin aluminum mesh.
And they are designed for sound to be able to transmit
through and back, because a lot of the reflective material
for the acoustics to the hall are up in the ceiling spaces.
The back walls of the auditorium, especially up
above, can be closed down with drapes to increase the softness
of the space, the absorbative quality of the space.
But additionally, we have these wooden panels over here,
throughout the hall behind the boxes.
And down below here are panels that can be raised
and lowered, so that you can create softer or harder surfaces
and change the acoustics of the hall, depending on what
kind of sound you want to have.
[Applause]
At the all levels of the hall, there are seats
available for people with disabilities.
On the side ends of the rows, there are what
are called transfer seats.
Seats where the arm drops down and people who are ambulatory,
but need assistance and seating, can drop the arm and
sit into the adjacent seat.
In other words, a real multipurpose hall, and clearly
a very beautiful and wonderful space in which to listen
and watch a performance.
[Music]
Here's another interesting fact about the Overture
Center. All the interior and exterior walls are made of
French limestone, and you can actually see animal and plant
fossils embedded in the walls.
It took about 300 workers at the peak of construction
to put all of Overture's elements together.
In Chippewa Falls, there were fewer laborers working to
restore the Heidi Center for the Arts, but they worked
with just as much heart.
And as producer Liz Kurner tells us, many
of them were volunteers.
[Music]
The old Catholic high school in Chippewa Falls, purchase
on a hill overlooking the Chippewa River Valley.
The building has been a prominent feature on
the city's skyline since it was built in 1907.
It was a big building, it was an impressive building on
the outside with its pillars, and it stood up here in
these till all these years.
McDonald Memorial High played host to thousands of students
in its heyday, but in 1964, a new school went up in town and
the old building was abandoned.
Over the years, neglect threatened to destroy
this historic structure.
Everything was just falling down, there were bats all
through the building, and there were dead pigeons.
The floors were all buckled, the water had
come through the roof, the walls were all stained.
By the late 70s, some people were ready to
rip the building down.
Others argued to give it a second chance.
They wanted to create a performing art center,
and the old high school was just the ticket.
We just didn't have anything that we could have some
lovely cultural activities going on for families and
their children to go to.
It was needed, I mean we just figured there was a big
need for a center like this.
The community came out and forced to support the new
center. To date they phrased almost $2 million to renovate
the former high school.
A lot of people went to school here, they had
a great education, they became successful business
people, they wanted to give back to the community.
They named it the Heidi Center for the Arts, an
honor of a local family that helped fund the restoration.
Money also came from other local groups.
They were one of the most exciting things and really
impressed me as the park elementary kids sold candy bars
to name part of the building.
So they paid, they raised about, think about $15,000
in candy bar sales.
The community came through in another important way.
People volunteered and drove to renovate the interior.
Chuck Card went to high school here in the 50s.
I don't know, I guess I just, I think that everybody
should put back into the community and that's where
you really get things.
Volunteers have helped restore every inch of the
interior from sanding and painting the woodwork to
refinishing the floors.
So far volunteer hours have saved the Heidi Center, three
and a half million dollars.
This place would not be here without volunteers.
So much labor and time and energy has been put in by
these people, I call it blood sweat and tears to
get to where we're at today.
Well I think the entrance to the auditorium and
everything is really neat because they found these
old windows up in the attic.
And there are the little design pains in the windows and so on.
And those were taken out and I imagine that they probably got
broke so often that they just put plywood panels in there.
And those weren't even there when I went to school.
And then they found those up there
and they restored those and they replaced them in the back.
They had a trial in there too.
The newly renovated Heidi Center opened its
doors in the year 2000.
Restoration work continues behind the scenes but the
community already enjoys a range of arts activities
from music and theater to art classes and exhibits.
The metamorphosis of McDonald High into the Heidi Center
for the Arts is positive proof of the power of community.
This community is great.
They really take pride and ownership of what
they do in this community.
It's just a wonderful place to have around.
I live on the south side and I can
look out my window and see the lights on over here.
It just makes you glow inside to see that happen.
It was a long time coming but it's
here and it's happening.
The Overture Hall lobby features a window wall
of 91 glass panes, each weighing 2,379 pounds.
They are the largest insulated glass panels in
any building in the world.
While many of the performing arts centers featured in
this program contain grand elements, you don't need
grandeur to enjoy the arts.
As producer Frederica Freiberg discovered, you can find
great performances in the most unlikely locations.
From an inner city Milwaukee nightclub turned over to
original poetry and song.
To Norwegian singers and dancers in an outdoor park pavilion in
the hills of western Wisconsin.
All the way to an up close theater experience inside an
Appleton Historical Museum.
These are some of the kinds of varied and
alternative performance spaces all around Wisconsin.
At Mecha Nightclub in the heart of the central city, this
act is called Liquid Words.
It's part of a growing performance scene known as
Spoken Word Artistry, Original Poetry, Drama, Rhythm.
Milwaukee has a strong scene, there's a growing
scene in Madison, there's also a venue in Green Bay.
Nightclub owner Dasha Kelly says she wants to provide
a forum for the genre.
She is herself a Spoken Word artist.
I, son died today.
Kelly transports the audience to her own place of personal pain.
She says her poetry is about expressing human
messages that connect people.
I give me a $5 microphone and a $15 amp in.
I'll be sports with all the people as they pass
by on busy intersegesists.
Other Spoken Word artists write for the sound and the
cadence, still others deliver political or social messages.
I don't crack at children but the state took care of that.
It's such a thrill to be able to come down here and
relive the past, you know.
Oli Berg of Hickston is a world away from the central
city, but enjoying his brand of performance in
the hills near La Crosse.
A nature center and historical farmstead called Norse Godalen
or Norwegian Valley offers a park shelter for performances,
a taste of the old country.
I've been coming down here and offered quite a few years,
thrashing us and shredding corn and then we danced old-time
music and talked a little nerve-idgin, you know, with
some of them good people of you.
And we always have a good time.
I've been doing some of the stay-at-home games they've been
publishing in the post-cresson.
At the Outa Gaming Museum, history comes alive
with actors performing inside exhibit spaces.
This play relives the days of the polio epidemic
and the Salk vaccination.
204 kids got polio from the vaccine they were getting.
Actors say the audience is so close it can be
awkward, but also rewarding.
When someone comes up to you and they want to tell you
about their experiences with what you are talking about.
Sure, but he was still tied up suspended underwater up.
That's really cool because that means that they not only
bought into the illusion of the play, but they were
emotionally affected by it.
You get to see it more and nobody's in your way.
Yeah, you have a better view.
And you can hear.
Different spaces, different places, performance art in
all corners of Wisconsin.
For more information on performance venues around
the state, check out our website portalwasconson.org.
The site includes an events calendar, feature stories
and virtual tours of many performance spaces
around Wisconsin, including the Overture Center.
That's our program.
Thanks so much for joining us for this
special episode of In Wisconsin.
We leave you with some of the sights and sounds
of the Overture Center.
[Music]
Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people of
Alliant Energy who bring safe, reliable and environmentally
friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in
Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliant Energy, offering energy-saving ideas on the web.
[Music]