Located in: Baraboo, Wisconsin

The Al. Ringling Theatre in Baraboo, Wisconsin, first raised its curtains in November, 1915. Designed by the architectural firm Rapp and Rapp, it was funded by Albert Ringling, one of the famous Ringling Brothers Circus Entrepreneurs, as a gift to his home community. The theatre featured a wide range of performances from vaudeville and silent movies, to grand opera.

The theater seats 700. The design of the theater is based on the Orpheum Theatre, built by Rapp and Rapp in Champaign, Illinois in 1914. The decor is said to be derived from Ange-Jacques Gabriel’s opera house of 1763-1770 in the Palace of Versailles, but some also believe it may have been based on Victor Louis’s 1780 Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux. Originally the theater had a Style 1 Wurlitzer theater pipe organ, and then a 9 rank, 3 manual Barton with a “circus wagon” style console.

While the theater has remained in continuous operation since it was built, it often suffered from deferred maintenance and slow deterioration. In 2013 the Al Ringling Theater Friends, a local non-profit that had acquired the structure in 1989, was awarded a Capital Campaign Challenge Grant of $1,000,000 by the Jeffris Family Foundation. After a successful $3.0M campaign, and just in time for its centennial celebration, the theater was fully restored and re-equipped to continue to serve as a live performance, music and film venue.

In 2024, the Friends group passed ownership of the theater to the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) which operates Circus World in Baraboo, an expansive state historic site that was the winter quarters of the Ringling Brothers Circus. WHS manages and programs the theater as an extension of that site.