Overture Center Collection: 20th Anniversary Celebration

After the initial opening in 2004, Overture Hall and four other performance spaces, including the Promenade Hall and the Rotunda Stage, became available for national and international touring shows. Robert D'Angelo, the former director of the Madison Civic Center, was briefly the first president of Overture Center and continued to recruit popular and versatile shows that would appear to a variety of audiences. The next president, Michael Goldberg, continued the legacy and pushed more boundaries with even more performance spaces. When Overture Center first opened, Goldberg predicted that it would be around for 100 years but stressed the fact that everyone involved - committee members, employees, and citizens of Madison - would define the legacy of the space.

In 2006, a part of Goldberg's statement rang true when Stage 2 of Overture Center's construction revealed the newly renovated Oscar Mayer Theater, Isthmus Playhouse, and Madison Art Center with their new titles of the Capitol Theater, The Playhouse, and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. In particular, the restoration of the Capitol Theater to its original state sparked joy from the community and presented new opportunities for the Overture to reintroduce an integral part of the center's history - Duck Soup Cinema.

Inspired by the Capitol's past as a silent film house, Duck Soup Cinema is a part of each season at Overture and works to highlight silent films from across the early twentieth century. While Overture Hall's Concert Organ was designed and built by the German firm Orgelbau Klais in 2001, the Capitol's original organ from 1928 was recently restored and served as the centerpiece of the Duck Soup series.

Broadway performances, ballets, orchestras, and silent films are only a sampling of the performances and guests that Overture presents every season. Over the years, Overture's shows have become more frequent, and their schedule is filled with a variety of content. In 2020, Overture proudly announced shows like "The Color Purple," "Mean Girls," "The Lion King," and "Wicked." However, in March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the country, the lights went down on the March 14th performance of "Wicked," and Overture Center closed. The set of "Wicked" remained frozen on Overture Center's stage for six months.

Not until late August 2021 was it safe to reopen to the public. As Overture recovered from these lost months, the center's team continued to foster their mission to bring the arts to their community through virtual methods. When the 2021/2022 season began, Overture Center focused on strengthening its relationship with its community and building new programs to provide access to the arts to a wider audience of patrons.

As the "home for the arts" in Madison, Overture Center has spent 20 years bringing performances and visual art to the community of Madison, Wisconsin, and will hopefully continue to do so for many more years to come.

"The arts are why we exist. Art is our passion." - Overture's 2021/22 Annual Report.