After 29 years of operation, Bartell Theatre in Madison is distinguished by its status as the oldest collaboratively run performing arts institution in the United States. Unlike traditional venues, it operates as a theater cooperative governed by a board of directors selected from its resident companies in a unique arrangement.
Originally built in 1906, the Bartell has evolved from a variety of uses, including a dance academy and a movie theater, into a vibrant hub for local artists and audiences alike. It fosters creativity through its resident companies and a host of nonresident companies renting performance space, each contributing to the dynamic arts scene in Madison. Each resident company produces a full season of plays, with actors and production teams volunteering their time for the joy of community theater participation.
The upstairs Drury Stage is a traditional proscenium space seating 199 and 4 wheelchair spaces. The stage space measures 30 feet deep by 40 feet wide. It has a full lighting rig with installed dimmers, an ETC Ion lighting control desk, and a rep plot with conventional and LED fixtures. The Drury has a full sound system with a front of house mixing position, amplifiers, speakers, and wireless microphones. The Evjue Stage is a flexible black box space seating up to approximately 80 to 90, depending on the arrangement of the seating blocks. It has a Unistrut grid for hanging lighting instruments, a 48-circuit ETC Sensor Dimmer rack, and an ETC EOS Element lighting control system. It has a sound system with two speakers, a 12-channel mixing desk, CD players, and amplifier. Both theaters are available for rent when not booked by resident company productions.
Bartell Theatre resident companies:
Madison Theatre Guild, founded in 1946 and an original Bartell company, with rehearsal and set construction space at the old firehouse on Monroe Street.
Mercury Players Theatre, a founding member producing new, unusual, and original plays, including an annual holiday panto and the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop Blitz. Mercury shares rehearsal and set construction space with Madison Public Theatre and Stage Q, two additional resident companies.
Madison Public Theatre, circa 2024, produces classics and new works with a focus on inclusion and mentoring of the next generation of theater practitioners.
Stage Q is Madison’s queer theater with plays focused on LGBTQ+ stories and a safe space for performers and practitioners.
Madison Shakespeare Company, another recent addition to the resident companies, focuses on Shakespearean and classic works.
The Bartell Theatre Foundation Board is responsible for oversight of the theater, with a Bartell Theatre Corporation Board responsible for the property. Both Boards are chaired by President Stephanie Monday. Foundation directors are Vice President Steve Noll, Treasurer Julia Houck, and Secretary Jason Compton. At-large directors are Zak Stowe, Bonnie Balke, Ren Kaspar-Tracy, and Kendra Thompson. This team represents the resident companies and is responsible for theater policy, operations, and fundraising.
The Bartell Theatre Foundation Board, a mix of business professionals and highly experienced theater professionals, has worked tirelessly to achieve its goals. The current fundraising project entails upgrades to the 120-year-old building and theater equipment to sustain the work as the Board begins to pass it in succession to the next generation of theater artists serving our Greater Dane County community. The goal is to stabilize the building and technical equipment and pass a viable, thriving theater to the next generation. The Board resolved a number of safety issues in 2025.
The Board has established the Bartell Film Series, a fundraising arm of the Foundation providing film classics on a collapsible screen in the Drury Theatre, and the Bartell Theatre Company, a semiannual fundraising production supported by all participating theater companies to raise funds for ongoing Bartell Foundation projects. Home to the Wisconsin and Madison Film Festivals, the Bartell Film Series is the only remaining cinema in downtown Madison.
The resident companies have mentored young people with new theater degrees arriving in Madison from across the country for decades, with significant growth in numbers post-pandemic. The Bartell Theatre mission since 1998 remains “to equip, operate, and maintain a live-performance facility created by the foundation for the benefit of the participating theater companies, and additional publicly supported organizations of the same class, so as to assist them in carrying out the purposes for which they’re organized.”
The Bartell annually serves more than 10,000 audience members. The theater provides a creative, supportive community environment imbued with the hope, joy, and teamwork that only live theater can produce. At the Bartell, our community finds affordable Sunday matinee entertainment for the elderly living in downtown Madison; a safe environment for the disabled young man living in a downtown group home to learn work skills as he volunteers his time; and a home for friendships, creativity, and artistic expression of the theater people of our community.
Photographs provided by Bartell Theatre.
Bartell Theatre
113 E. Mifflin Street
Madison, WI 53703
(608) 661-9696
bartelltheatre.org