The picnic before 'Picnic' at American Players Theatre

Emma Waldinger, Madison Magazine

This summer, Spring Green’s American Players Theatre will present a production of “Picnic.” That’s not to be confused with APT’s tickets for picnic dinners from Hubbard Avenue Diner or the other kinds of picnicking that take place before an APT show, when audiences fill the on-site tables and shelters with dinner baskets before hiking up to Hill Theatre. The play has staff bracing for “an added level of confusion,” says APT box office manager Bruce Ehlinger. But it’s also a fun nod to a tradition that’s persisted at the outdoor theater likely since the very beginning.

“There were picnic tables here as early as the first year,” says Sara Young, managing director at APT. That was 1978. Young doesn’t know if picnicking before the show was in the original vision of APT’s founders, but the experience has certainly become a tradition, and Young estimates roughly half of APT’s audience picnics before a show. “Even before I worked at APT,” says Young, who has been at the theatre since 2003, “it was just what you do.”

For many playgoers, an evening at American Players Theatre begins with a drive. From Madison, it takes about 50 minutes to reach the grounds, and some people arrive as early as three or four hours in advance of showtime. The picnic setup next to the parking lot acts as a sort of buffer between the outdoor Hill Theatre and the “real world.” “It helps to leave behind what you’ve been doing all day and get your mind ready to go see the play,” says Ehlinger.

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