The Milwaukee Youth Arts Center (MYAC) is a first of its kind Arts-in-education Facility in Milwaukee

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...

, Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

. It is a contemporary, cutting edge performing arts education and rehearsal facility for the young people of southeastern Wisconsin, and gives children the opportunity to express themselves through the arts in a fun, creative, multicultural environment in a setting that offers well-designed, educationally appropriate rehearsal halls, classrooms and other training spaces, as well as a theater resource center, music library, costume shop and administrative offices.

The Milwaukee Youth Arts Center and its associated programs are dedicated to fostering talent, developing character and building the audiences of tomorrow.

The center is a collaboration between First Stage Children's Theater

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 plays and a touring production....

 and Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra

Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra

The Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra is a youth orchestra in Milwaukee. This is MYSO's 54th year of offering highest level of training in ensemble musicianship to motivated young people from diverse backgrounds across southeastern Wisconsin....

. It opened in early 2005.

Programs

The Milwaukee Youth Arts Center is home to First Stage Children's Theater

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 plays and a touring production....

, 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 Information

The building includes more than 55000 sq ft (5,109.7 m²) of program space. There are five large rehearsal halls with industry-standard acoustic configurations. The nine additional classrooms and two small rehearsal/practice rooms provide optimal soundproofing in order to accommodate a large number of programs at one time. The largest rehearsal hall, the Youth Arts Hall, is 3800 sq ft (353 m²). 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 3200 sq ft (297.3 m²) "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 familiar figures in theatre and music: Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

, Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry was an African American playwright and author of political speeches, letters, and essays...

, Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

, Martha Graham

Martha Graham

Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...

, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

, Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

, Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

, Konstantin Stanislavski

Konstantin Stanislavski

Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski , was a Russian actor and theatre director. Building on the directorially-unified aesthetic and ensemble playing of the Meiningen company and the naturalistic staging of Antoine and the independent theatre movement, Stanislavski organized his realistic...

, Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller

Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...

, and "B3," which stands for Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

, Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

, and Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

.