Milwaukee Rep Stages The Lehman Trilogy, Tracing a Wall Street Giant’s 163-Year Rise and Collapse
A financial dynasty brought to the stage in Milwaukee
Milwaukee Repertory Theater is presenting The Lehman Trilogy, a three-actor epic that dramatizes the growth of a family enterprise into a global financial institution and its eventual collapse during the 2008 financial crisis. The production runs from Jan. 13 through Feb. 8, 2026, at the Ellen & Joe Checota Powerhouse Theater inside the Associated Bank Theater Center downtown.
The play traces a timeline beginning in 1844 with the arrival of a young immigrant in New York and follows successive generations of the Lehman family as the business expands from a small mercantile operation into an investment powerhouse. The narrative spans roughly 163 years, culminating in a collapse portrayed as a turning point with worldwide economic consequences.
What the play is—and what it covers historically
The Lehman Trilogy was written by Italian playwright Stefano Massini and centers on the real-world arc of Lehman Brothers, the investment bank whose bankruptcy in September 2008 became a defining event of the global financial crisis. Stage versions of the work have been mounted internationally, and the play has been recognized at the Tony Awards, including in the category of Best Play.
By structuring the story around family succession and institutional expansion, the play places business decisions, cultural assimilation, and the pursuit of wealth on the same timeline—connecting the personal story of immigration and entrepreneurship with the later emergence of complex modern finance.
Milwaukee run details and production context
Venue: Ellen & Joe Checota Powerhouse Theater, Associated Bank Theater Center, 108 E. Wells St., Milwaukee
Dates: Jan. 13–Feb. 8, 2026
Format: Performed by three actors portraying dozens of characters across multiple generations
The staging is part of Milwaukee Rep’s inaugural season in the renovated theater complex, a major redevelopment project designed to expand performance capacity and modernize audience and production facilities. The 2025–26 season also includes large-scale musicals, new and contemporary dramas, and classic titles across the organization’s venues.
Why this story resonates beyond finance
Although rooted in a specific company’s history, the play’s Milwaukee presentation arrives as arts institutions nationwide continue to program works that interrogate systems—finance, power, and corporate culture—through personal narratives. In that frame, The Lehman Trilogy uses the rise-and-fall structure not as a market explainer but as a long view of how institutions are built, how risk accumulates, and how decisions made over decades can reverberate far beyond boardrooms.
From immigrant beginnings to the 2008 crash, the story is staged as an American saga spanning generations and economic transformations.