Commonweal Theatre

Mission Statement:
The Commonweal is a non-profit, professional theatre dedicated to delighting and challenging the people of our region. As a collective of artists and administrators, we value community, diversity, learning and artistic integrity. And because every performance is a collaboration between artists and audience, we want to make live theatre accessible to as many as possible.

History:
The Commonweal Theatre was founded in 1989 by Eric Lorentz Bunge at the behest of the Lanesboro Art Council. The company’s first season was eleven weeks long, employing ten artists who presented Crimes of the Heart and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Originally the producing arm of the LAC, the company committed to paying all artists who worked for it. The first season’s audience of over 3,000 attended 40 performances that summer.

The first four years were marked by modest growth in season length, company size, audience size, numbers of productions, programs, and budget. 1991 beheld the first outreach production (to La Crosse Lutheran Hospital) and the beginning of the student matinee program, and 1992  witnessed the first high school conservatory program. In 1993 the company moved to a rotating repertory schedule for the bulk of the season, and the theatre played to over 9,000.

1995 saw the addition of the Lanesboro Radio Company, initially an unaffiliated group of community volunteers who created and produced Over the Back Fence.

In 1996, the theatre undertook its first mainstage tour, bringing U.S.A. by John Dos Passos to Red Wing and Minneapolis. The company also began development of a script with playwright Robert Wolf based upon the true-life stories of farm families in the area over the past five decades. Called Heartland Portrait, the piece was workshopped for two years before being  included in our 1998 mainstage tour and season to critical and audience acclaim.

In 1997 the theatre added an Elderhostel program in association with Winona State University to reach life-long learners. Also in 1997, the company began to plan for additional expansion of our performance season. This resulted in February 1998 in the inauguration of our Ibsen Festival, an annual production and affiliated events with the work of Henrik Ibsen as its focus. With this production, the company’s mainstage season ran from February through December.

Concurrently, the staffing structure was expanded to accommodate full-time employees, serving as artist/administrators, now known as the Resident Company.

Our story continues as we deepen our commitment to developing new plays, enhance our educational programming, engage the finest artists from across the country, and expand into a brand new facility to call our own.