Inside Memorial Union at the University of Wisconsin–Madison sits the Wisconsin Union Theater. This performing arts center in Madison presents world stage, concerts, dance, jazz and other special events. The theater opened in the fall of 1939, designed by architect Michael Hare.
Statewide radio broadcast the October 8 inaugural ceremonies, and the next three days featured four performances of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, starring the leading couple of the American theater, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Over the last 70 years Union Theater audiences have seen and heard some of the most famous public figures, actors, dancers and musicians: Eleanor Roosevelt, Fritz Kreisler, Ella Fitzgerald, Indian Prime Minister Nehru, Frank Lloyd Wright, Yo-Yo Ma, T. S. Eliot, Jesse Jackson, Arthur Rubinstein, Jascha Heifetz, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Frost, Itzhak Perlman, John F. Kennedy, Louis Armstrong, Martha Graham, Ted Turner, Kurt Vonnegut and Dave Brubeck have all appeared here. The Wisconsin Union Directorate allows students to participate in the programming and execution.
Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne opened these doors in 1939 with four performances of The Taming of the Shrew.