When Kevin Giglinto took on the job as president and chief executive officer of the Marcus Performing Arts Center earlier this year, it marked a return to familiar territory.
The Hackensack, New Jersey native is a 1987 graduate of Marquette University. Those years on campus is when Giglinto first developed an affinity for Milwaukee. He would later spend more than 16 years in various roles with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, during which he would routinely visit Milwaukee.
“The chance to come to a city that I really love and to lead an institution that is trying to have an impact creatively in this market was really a great attraction for me,” Giglinto said.
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Giglinto replaced Kendra Whitlock Ingram, who served in the top leadership role from late 2019 until January 2023 when she left to take the helm as president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Ingram succeeded Paul Mathews, who retired after leading the Marcus Center for 21 years.
Giglinto previously served at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. as senior vice president of marketing and chief strategy officer. In the role, he guided the brand position, digital strategy and long-term vision to build and engage diverse audiences.
Since arriving at the Marcus Center six months ago, Giglinto has strongly pushed for an expansion of racial, equity, diversity and inclusion in the performing arts. Earlier this week, the center unveiled the Culture Collective, an addition to its performance lineup designed to celebrate and elevate the contributions of artists of color across a wide spectrum of artistic disciplines.
Giglinto spoke with Milwaukee Magazine about his plans for the Marcus Center.
MilMag: What appealed to you about leading the Marcus Performing Arts Center?
Kevin Giglinto: The things that I was doing at the Kennedy Center are very similar to the kinds of things that the Marcus Center has been striving to do. The diversity of the programming and the desire to grow that and to connect with a diverse audience is something that I’ve been focusing on a lot in my career, and particularly at the Kennedy Center.
What is your vision for the Marcus Center?
KG: I want to give credit to my predecessor, Kendra Whitlock Ingram. She and I are kindred spirits. When I was going through the interview process, the board committee shared with me the strategic plan for the Marcus Center and it looked remarkably similar to the one I had just authored for the Kennedy Center. What is our role in the community for creating a cultural gathering place and being a cultural anchor? A lot of what the center has already been doing regarding rebuilding our campus’ outdoor grounds and providing a place where people can come together really does emphasize the role a performing arts center needs to have.
It’s important for us to have an anchor like Broadway, which is a really big attraction across the nation but Milwaukee audiences have clearly been coming out in droves. But it’s not just that. Our role is to reflect the many diverse voices from our culture and making sure that we have artists on our stage that reflect the diversity of our community, which means hopefully connecting with audiences that may not have seen themselves here in the past. This is all a continuation of a strategic plan that was put in place before I got here and it’s something that I believed in very strongly coming into the job.
You’ve expressed an interest in forging more partnerships. Why is that important?
KG: The creative economy is about connections. Often, artistry doesn’t live individually. You’re working together, whether it’s partnerships with other institutions or whether it’s with partnerships with creators in the economy. Part of it is like what we did with First Stage Children’s Theater. We co-commissioned a work that was part of our partnership with (former Green Bay Packers star) Donald Driver, who is our cultural ambassador, translating stories of his youth. This was a very inspirational and challenging story and turning it into live theater was really important. The fact that it was the three of us coming together – Donald, First Stage and the Marcus Center – made it possible. I don’t think it would have been possible under any other circumstance. It’s good example of the way we need to go about things.
Any other examples?
KG: When we did the celebration of the 50 years of hip-hop, it was the continuation of a partnership with TRUE Skool, which is an amazing group, working with young people through the lens of hip-hop to extend and inspire creativity. We probably couldn’t have celebrated hip-hop the way we did without the collaboration with TRUE Skool.
What are your plans to bring more diverse programming to the city?
KG: Part of it is having the relationship with the artists. We are actively trying to build connections with artists who haven’t seen us as their destination before. If you look at the programing from last year and the programming from this year, there are a number of artists who haven’t been to Milwaukee in many years. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which is arguably the most important dance company in the nation and has been touring for many, many years. They hadn’t been to Milwaukee in 20 years. What we want to do is not have one-off performances but forge a relationship where there is a creative dialogue that goes on over multiple years and that exposes more of our community to that artistry. And what does Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater do when they come to town? They do master classes and workshops with dancers.
We have Dance Theater of Harlem coming on Valentine’s Day and they will be doing that very same thing. They are a very important dance ensemble and reflect a different perspective of dance. There are a lot of ensembles, whether it’s dance or music, that speak from a specific cultural lens that isn’t something that people traditionally have seen here or aren’t used to. A part of my challenge and our challenge institutionally is in making sure people are aware that we are doing this. You can put as much as you want on the stage and put a bunch of advertising out there but part of how you build awareness is through community relationships and we’ve been doing quite a bit of that so that there is a broader awareness. It’s not about having one performance and saying please come and we’ll count that as diverse. It’s about building lasting relationships.
What do you see as the Marcus Center’s role in arts education?
KG: It’s absolutely crucial. It’s a huge gap we have in the state of Wisconsin, and it’s been discussed a lot. I know a lot of people are concerned about it. When I was growing up, there were a lot of artistic programs. I had art. I had music. I’ve been a musician for my entire life because I got to play instruments when I was younger. It’s not necessarily about turning me into a professional musician. It’s about sparking and fostering creative individuals. That is what arts education does. If you look at studies, when kids are exposed to arts education, it spurs creativity in other ways that aren’t even a direct connection. It’s not necessarily about creating new composers but in the way they approach engineering or architecture or language. That’s why I think arts education is important.
Are partnerships part of this effort, too?
KG: We have about 50 or 60 schools that we’ve been working with on and off in different ways, and what we want to do is make sure we have an impact on those schools. Some of it is just making sure we can bring them affordably into our venues so they can experience art at a young age and be inspired. We just launched a program around high school musicals, where we’re going to be working with a number of high schools in the area not just to grade their performances but actually give them some professional feedback so that these young people are experiencing creative conversation and inspiration. We also critique them, because that is part of art and you learn and grow from it. What I love about Milwaukee is that it is philanthropic and its arts community is very collaborative and has invested a lot. We just need some support from the government, frankly.
What is the importance of free community events?
KG: One of the things that really attracted me to this job and this place is that I looked at the city’s Downtown 2040 plan and the Marcus Center has been right in the middle of it. What’s exciting is that we are trying to build up the city. We want to make sure we are complementing the investment the city is making in Downtown. Live art needs to be experienced in a multitude of ways and it’s also about making sure people feel like they can come here. So, if we want them to buy a ticket, it’s not such a foreign thing and it’s not about the money but making an experience happen.
What kind of free community events are you considering?
KG: We are going to do Rainbow Summer again. Going back to partnerships, the Downtown Business Improvement District has been a wonderful partner, as has Visit Milwaukee. We are looking forward to doing more things with the Theater District and having people come gather here when the weather is warm. It’s not just about the performances on our property but how we connect with Red Arrow Park and Pere Marquette Park across the river so that’s there also this visual connectivity. I’d also love to do more with veterans. We are a War Memorial and that’s important for us. I’ve had wonderful conversations with different veterans’ groups and there’s a whole host of veterans who are artists themselves. We need to find more opportunities for us to use Peck Pavilion for them in order to get their artistry across.
What about tenants in the building? With the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra moving into their own space two years ago, a lot of that stemmed from concerns over available performance dates. What are plans for the remaining resident companies?
KG: I think we have an excellent collection of resident companies, and we are working with each of them to try and take care of them in a way that will help them best reach their audiences. I’ve been in conversations with all of them, whether it’s partnering with them to try and get them dates earlier out if they need a longer planning cycle or talking together as we continue to evolve the building because it needs to be kept up. When you think about stage experiences, it evolves over time, and we want to make sure our technology and our capabilities match our needs and those of the resident companies and Broadway touring. We’re working very closely with them.
What are the plans for infrastructure upgrades at the Marcus Center?
KG: Probably coming out the New Year, we are going to be sharing with our board an update to our campus master plan. It was a very active plan a number of years before the pandemic but due to the pandemic, a lot of that got altered. Again, giving credit to my predecessor, there was a focus on a couple of projects that were completed during the pandemic, including an update to Uihlein Hall. That was really important to our resident companies as well as to us but there are other things, too. We want to make sure that the investments we are making are clear and obvious but also connect to our bigger vision with our role as a cultural gathering place. I don’t want to get ahead of myself but coming out of the new year, we will have a refreshed master plan that will lay out those priorities for capital investment to make sure we are keeping up with what the art needs.”
What is your assessment of the vibrancy of Milwaukee’s arts scene?
KG: You often here the phrase that Milwaukee punches above its weight, but I think Milwaukee is very well-weighted city. I think it is a very vibrant artist community and it is robust. There are a lot of artists who see Milwaukee as a destination. It is definitely a vibrant community. It’s also very collaborative, which you don’t often see. I think this city is remarkably collaborative.
