The Milwaukee Youth Arts Center (MYAC) is an arts-in-education facility in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

. A performing arts education and rehearsal facility for the young people of southeastern Wisconsin, it provides opportunities for children to express themselves through the arts in a multicultural environment. The facility has rehearsal halls, classrooms, and other training spaces, a theater resource center, a music library, a costume shop, and administrative offices. The center is a collaboration between

First Stage Children's Theater The First Stage Children's Theater is a professional American children's theater based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin founded in 1987. Its season consists of six “mainstage” shows, two shows for very young audiences, and two shows from its award-wi ...

and Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra. It opened in early 2005.

Programs

The Milwaukee Youth Arts Center is home to

, Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, Danceworks, Festival City Symphony, Milwaukee Children's Choir, and African American Children's Theater, along with other groups who rent the facility for individual events.

Facility

The building includes more than of program space. There are five large rehearsal halls with industry-standard acoustic configurations. Nine additional classrooms and two small rehearsal/practice rooms provide soundproofing in order to accommodate a large number of programs at one time. The largest rehearsal hall, the Youth Arts Hall, is and serves as a performance venue for MYSO groups and student productions of the First Stage Theater Academy. In the center of the building is the {{convert, 3200, sqft, m2, abbr=on "Commons" area, which provides an area for parents and students to relax while in the building. The nine smaller classrooms and two rehearsal/practice rooms are named after figures in theater and music: Duke Ellington,

Lorraine Hansberry Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best-known work, the play ''A Raisin in the Sun'', highli ...

, Gustav Mahler, Martha Graham,

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, Dmitri Shostakovich, Stephen Sondheim, Konstantin Stanislavski,

Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are ''All My Sons'' (1947), '' Death of a Salesman'' (1 ...

, and "B3," which stands for

Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wor ...

Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...

, and

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

. In 2012, the MYAC board announced that two of the larger halls would be renamed for long-time First Stage and MYSO leaders Rob Goodman and Fran Richman.

External links

Official MYAC website
Theatres in Milwaukee Youth organizations based in Wisconsin Culture of Milwaukee Buildings and structures in Milwaukee Education in Milwaukee