Milwaukee's We Are The Drum 2026 Celebrates Culture Through Live Drumming and Dance

City at Peace in the Arts (CAPITA) Productions brought We Are The Drum 2026 to Marshall High School on Milwaukee's north side for a multi-weekend run that blended live percussion, dance, and storytelling with the kind of cultural specificity the nonprofit has been building toward since 1990.

The production, described by organizers as "an uplifting and high-energy production that highlights cultural heritage through storytelling, movement, and percussion," opened with a Community Day performance on February 28 at the 4141 North 64th Street venue. Additional performances followed on Saturday, February 25 at 3 p.m. and Sunday, February 26 at 4 p.m., per RadioMilwaukee's listing, though those dates conflict with the Community Day opening reported by other sources and were flagged as unresolved. The confirmed final weekend of performances ran Friday, March 6 at 7 p.m., Saturday, March 7 at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday, March 8 at 3 p.m., with tickets priced at $20 per person and limited seating available.

What makes We Are The Drum more than a showcase is the pipeline behind it. CAPITA partners with local schools to deliver theatrical training to youth with limited access to arts programming, and the annual production serves as the culminating performance for those students. The drumming and movement audiences saw on stage were the product of that training cycle, not imported talent.

The organization behind it has deep Milwaukee roots. CAPITA was founded in 1990 by the late Brother Booker Ashe, the House of Peace founder, and Arlene Skwierawski, former Performing Arts Director of North Division High School. Kevin C. Williams currently serves as Executive Director. That founding lineage connects the drum work on stage to a specific tradition of north-side Milwaukee community institution-building that predates most of the city's current arts infrastructure.

For drummers specifically, the production is worth understanding as a model. We Are The Drum puts percussion at the center of a theatrical narrative rather than in a pit or support role. The live drumming is structural to the storytelling, not decorative, which is a different compositional proposition than most staged productions attempt. CAPITA's approach, rooted in cultural heritage and educational intention, treats the drum as the primary vehicle for history and identity, which is exactly the framing the instrument deserves.

Tickets for the run were available at capitaproductions.com.