Founded in 1993 by Susan Fete, Marie Kohler, Raeleen McMillion, Jennifer Rupp, and Michelle Traband, Renaissance Theaterworks is billed as Milwaukee’s only women-founded, women-run theatre company. Its mission is to focus on women’s roles onstage and off in creating productions of works ranging from classics to world premieres. RTW is inclusive in its hiring practices and uses the talents of both men and women in its shows, its administration, and its board of directors.

The company makes its home in The Studio Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center, located in Milwaukee’s historic Third Ward. Among its recent productions: Michele Lowe’s Smell of the Kill, David Harrower’s Blackbird, Suzan-Lori Parks’s Topdog/Underdog, Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig, and The Persians by Aeschylus.