Setting the stage for a successful future

As the Green Bay Community Theater kicked off its 2025-26 season this week, the organization also kicked off a capital campaign aimed to ensure its performance space will continue to host shows for years to come.

GBCT’s landmark home, the Robert Lee Brault Playhouse, a former church built in 1853 and purchased by the organization in 1966, is one of the city’s cultural treasures.

As the organization looks to the future, its leaders are calling on the community to help preserve history while making significant improvements to enhance audience comfort, accessibility and production quality.

The capital campaign will raise funding for several initiatives, from restoring the building’s timeless façade and replacing 40-year-old seating to upgrading lighting technology, improving accessibility for patrons and enhancing energy efficiency.

“It’ll be new seats — maybe less than [the current] 192 seats, but with more legroom — new carpet, and we’ll freshen up the paint. That’s for the comfort of our audience,” said Green Bay Community Theater Board President Dave Zochert. “We have a lighting system that really hasn’t been updated — the last time it was updated was the early 2000s — so that actually is one of the bigger ticket items that we have that is going to enhance the experience of being here and what we can do with lighting at Green Bay Community Theater.

The other stuff is cosmetic — there’s some stuff on the exterior of the building that once you walk into the building you forget about. There’s some places where the castle-like material is coming off the walls and separating and all of a sudden you’ve got a leak on the inside. You’ve got to protect the outside of the building before you start working on the inside.”

Although Green Bay Community Theater hopes to make much-needed changes to its space through this capital campaign, Zochert said the goal of the organization will remain the same.

“We’ve been here for a long time,” he said. “Next season will be our 90th season/ We haven’t been here the whole 90 years, but we’ve been here since 1966 when [Green Bay Community Theater] bought this… This theater is going to be here today and tomorrow just as it was here yesterday. The seats are going to be nicer, but the plays are going to be the same. It’s community people working very hard to tell a story.”

For 89 years, GBCT has enriched the Greater Green Bay area with the magic of live theater, staging productions where community members of all skill levels are welcome to participate onstage, backstage, or anywhere in between, regardless of background and experience, providing opportunities for those who want to share their existing talents or try something new.

“We encourage not only the community to come see the shows, but also to participate in them however you are comfortable,” Zochert said. “At every single show, just about, we have either an actor or a crew member of somebody that has never worked here or in a theater before and we are more than willing to work with them, train them and help them learn something new.”

And of those who have taken up the offer to be involved in theater, whether in the audience or on the stage, Green Bay Community Theater has become an important space for many.

“There’s a personal connection that happens in the theater that doesn’t happen in many other spaces,” Zochert said. “For a lot of people here, the theater has become a very good third space, which a lot of people are missing nowadays. There are groups of people who come here with their friends and they enjoy a show and they talk about the show afterwards and it’s one of the highlights of their year. I’ve been told this by some of our patrons who’ve come here for years. They bring a group of maybe just two or four friends or sometimes it’s a whole group of 20 people who come to some shows and be with each other and feel connection to the story and it’s really important for them. And I know for some of the actors, some of them have said that it helps them with their mental health and it helps them feel connected to others because otherwise, a lot of people have a thing where they go home, they go to work and then it repeats every day. Having a third space to come and be a part of something, it just helps a lot of people.”

For more information about the capital campaign or upcoming shows, visit gbcommunitytheater.com.