Community Theater Returns to the Brown County Playhouse
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~story and photos by Boris Ladwig
ommunity theater is returning to the Brown County Playhouse this fall with a Tony Awardwinning comedy. Local officials hope the shows will spark a new era for the venue, with more community involvement, greater diversity of entertainment offerings, and perhaps, greater cash flow. The theater’s unassuming exterior on Van Buren Street belies its surprisingly spacious interior, which features a concession stand/bar, gallery with works of local artists and a 425-seat auditorium that often welcomes locals and tourists to experience touring performers or movies on a 23-foot screen. But when community theater veteran Mark Stolle moved to Brown County nearly three years ago, he thought the venue would be ideal to host plays in which community members act, build sets, design costumes, and perhaps even sing. He pushed for the performances in part because he missed acting. “I wanted a place to play,” he said.
50 Our Brown County July/August 2021
An electrical engineer by education, Stolle formerly owned a small business, but in his spare time he has been involved in community theater for more than 35 years and has acted in more than 30 productions, including Macbeth, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, the comedy the Playhouse will host late summer. When Stolle moved to Brown County from Liberty, he set out to bring community theater back to the Playhouse and got immediate support from the nonprofit’s board. “We all on the board were thrilled with that,” said Patty Frensemeier, the board’s president. Stolle joined the board, relaunched Theatre Brown County and, with community help, picked the play, secured a director, and scheduled auditions for March 2020. The pandemic forced a postponement of just over a year, but performances are planned for two weekends in September.
