Report #19 of the Wisconsin Theatre Diversity Study
Check out this post for more info on the study and our methodology.
Our nineteenth report is for Boulevard Theatre. The reporting period begins with Best Brothers in 2023 and runs through their most recent production of Murderers in 2025.
Actor Breakdown
The below data is the number of roles cast with actors of each demographic and the percentage total.
White - 26 roles, 89.7%
Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) - 2 roles, 6.9%
Latino/a/x - 1 role, 3.4%
Director Breakdown
The below data is the number of times a director of each demographic was hired and the percentage total. These numbers include directors and co-directors.
White - 5, 83.3%
Latino/a/x - 1, 17.7%
These numbers reflect 6 full productions consisting of 29 total roles for actors. Only actors listed in the adult cast/adult ensemble were considered for this study. As five of their six productions with available casting information were staged readings, we elected to include these in our reporting in lieu of excluding Boulevard completely from this reporting.
Their casting rate of white actors at 89.7% puts Boulevard Theatre at the second highest rate out of the 13 total storefront companies.
That 89.7% represents a little under 3 times the representation in city racial demographics. They cast no Black actors across these five shows, leaving them with no representation of Milwaukee's largest racial demographic. Boulevard’s casting rate of SWANA actors matched or exceeded their relative representational population in the City of Milwaukee that were tracked per the census.
Milwaukee Demographics
White (Alone) - 31.1%
Black (Alone) - 38.5%
Latino/a/x or Hispanic - 20.9%
AAPI (Alone) - 5.2%
Indigenous (Alone) - .8%
All Others (Including Multiracial) - 3.6%
Current Milwaukee Census Estimates: Link
We acknowledge that census data is imperfect, in part due to a lack of representation for SWANA and South Asian populations and confusion for Latin/Hispanic populations, but it gives us a starting point to understand where we’re falling short when it comes to representation in our community.