(Beaver Dam) The Beaver Dam Area Community Theatre recently completed a mural project that honors four artists that contributed to the arts in the Beaver Dam area. They include Nancy Zieman, Lois Ehlert, Fred MacMurray, and Eric Kalkhurst. President of the Board of Directors Emily Shier says the idea for the project came about a few years ago.
“I believe it was April of 2021, the Board of Directors at the Beaver Dam Area Community Theatre agreed to have Stephen Bennett, world renowned portrait artist, facilitate a community painting event,” says Shier.
Shier says the goal for the project was to honor icons in the form of four murals being hung up on the side of the Beaver Dam Area Community Theatre Fine Arts Center.
Chairman of the project Scott Eberle was the project manager when the new theatre was built with addition of a scene shop. Eberly says the shop had a big, blank wall, and thought that would be the perfect place for a mural.
“The downtown was going through a renaissance, and they had wall dogs come in and murals going up all over,” Eberle says. “And I thought that was a natural location for a mural. Well, once you decide that then it’s ‘What are you going to put on there? What kind of a mural?’”
The murals can be seen on the side of the Beaver Dam Area Community Theatre Fine Arts Center located on Maple Avenue on the east wall of the scene shop, facing the city’s parking lot.
–Photo courtesy of the Beaver Dam Area Community Theatre Facebook page
