www.jsonline.com: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee officials as well as theater and music students scrambled to find alternative places for music recitals and theatrical productions after a Saturday evening fire caused at least $1 million in damage to a portion of the Peck School of the Arts.
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I'm saddened to read about this news in my home town- but inspired to read about the organizations coming forward to support UWM through the end of the semester. I checked in with a friend there after the fire who is a director in the theatre school and he replied "Yeah I'm dead. Dead serious about you coming to see The Goat April 28th and 29th". So while his reply might be somewhat insensitive- it goes to show that while the school is distraught, they're lucky that no one was hurt and that the community is coming together to support the art students in their final weeks of school. UWM has probably the best theatre school in Wisconsin, and Milwaukee has been growing culturally (although sometimes slowly), so I worry that the destruction of the whole scene shop and musical instruments will set the school and therefore the city back. I hope the city continues to support the school not only through their final shows, but by fundraising for all the repairs.
Really, really sucks to see other theaters, especially other institutions, facing such hard times. Most importantly, it's good to know that no one was hurt and no one was responsible for the fire. Whenever fires happen in theaters, I get flashbacks to my high school TD's lessons about fire safety. Every semester we'd learn about infamous theater/entertainment fires, the loss of life, and what the main errors were for the catastrophe. Luckily for UWM, it wasn't a catastrophe and they seem to be doing OK despite the giant set back. Glad to see the willingness of students to continue with their production despite what happened; truly inspirational and I'm sure we'd all do the same if we ever face any type of hardships in the future. Technically speaking, I'd like to know what the cause of the fire was because there must've been some sort of error since, given the laws of physics, the space didn't just combust. Since it happened in the welding area, I wonder what went wrong. On top of it all, I hope the recovery is short and swift without more issues.
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