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Mission

Ten Chimneys Foundation’s Mission

  • Preserve and Share the buildings, furnishings, collections, and grounds of a national treasure – Ten Chimneys, the estate created by Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.
  • Serve as a continuing resource and powerful inspiration for theatre, the arts, and the art of living.
  • Offer public programs consistent with the Lunts’ varied interests and core values, while maintaining the integrity and intimacy of this extraordinary estate.

Ten Chimneys is a National Historic Landmark, a “Save America’s Treasures” project site, and is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. Ten Chimneys is owned by the non-profit 501(C)3 organization Ten Chimneys Foundation, Inc.

Mark Your Calendar: Ten Chimneys Foundation’s 2010 Public Programs

February 15, 2010

Call (262) 968-4110 for more information or to make reservations.

2010 Public Programs At-A-Glance
Mar 22nd: Pygmalion, Play Readings at Ten Chimneys
Apr 10th: Dick Van Patten, Conversations at Ten Chimneys
Apr 23rd and 24th: Mark Nadler, Music in the Drawing Room
May 4th: 2010 Tour Season: The Tour of a Lifetime
May 22nd: Dick Cavett, Conversations at Ten Chimneys (Sold Out)
Jun 26th: Jim and Gloria Irwin, Conversations at Ten Chimneys
Jul 17th: Concluding Presentation of the Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Program
Aug 30th: Tonight at 8:30, Play Readings at Ten Chimneys
Oct 18th, Design for Living, Play Readings at Ten Chimneys
Nov 13th: Robert Osborne, Conversations at Ten Chimneys

See below for more detailed information…


Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Monday, March 22nd, 7:00 PM
Play Readings at Ten Chimneys

Ten Chimneys Foundation launches its 2010 season of programs with our highly-acclaimed collaboration with Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Artistic Internship Program. In the tradition of the bygone “golden age of radio,” this engaging series allows audiences to see and hear the next generation of professional actors recreate plays related to Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the “golden couple of Broadway.” Don’t miss seeing these remarkable young actors as they read the George Bernard Shaw comedy, Pygmalion, which was famously adapted into My Fair Lady.


Dick Van Patten
Saturday, April 10th, 8:00 PM
Conversations at Ten Chimneys

Dick Van Patten is best known for playing mild-mannered fathers in movies and on TV. He started as a child actor, playing alongside Broadway stars such as Melvyn Douglas and Tallulah Bankhead. As a teenager, he spent three years playing the son of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in O Mistress Mine (winning the role over a young Marlon Brando). In our first Conversation at Ten Chimneys of 2010, Mr. Van Patten will share stories about his life, his career, and the fascinating people he’s known along the way. After the conversation, Mr. Van Patten will be available to sign copies of his new memoir, Eighty Is Not Enough. Books will be available for sale at Ten Chimneys, and book/ticket packages are available.


Mark Nadler
Friday, April 23rd, 8:30 PM
Saturday, April 24th, 6:00 and 8:30 PM
Music in the Drawing Room

Only once a year, Ten Chimneys offers you a rare opportunity: to sit in the mural-filled Drawing Room of Ten Chimneys, with a small number of friends (old and new) around you, and to enjoy a private concert by a world-class cabaret singer playing the Noël Coward Piano. Our 2010 Music in the Drawing Room promises to be extraordinary, as we welcome back Mark Nadler, the international cabaret sensation who The Village Voice calls “the most prodigiously talented entertainer working in America today.” 2010 is the 75th anniversary of the Lunts’ legendary production of The Taming of the Shrew, which inspired the Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate. In celebration, Mark Nadler has agreed to perform his world-renowned Cole Porter show, LET’S MISBEHAVE! A COLE PORTER SOIRÉE, which explores the wit, the romance, and the life of arguably the greatest of American songwriters. The show includes such timeless hits as Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love), Night And Day, and You’re The Top – as well as many lesser known gems. Seating is extremely limited.


2010 Tour Season: The Tour of a Lifetime
Tuesday, May 4th – Saturday, November 13th

With no ropes and nothing under glass, guests at Ten Chimneys are treated to a VIP guided tour of a National Historic Landmark replete with original furnishings and overflowing with the romance of the 1930s and ’40s. As we say, Ten Chimneys is more than a great museum. Ten Chimneys is an experience. One that inspires you to design the life you want to live. A muse. A dream. Ten Chimneys delights and rejuvenates — and stays with you long after you leave. We look forward to welcoming you home to Ten Chimneys in 2010.


Dick Cavett
Saturday, May 22nd, 8:00 PM
Conversations at Ten Chimneys

Tickets to this Conversation are sold out.

The host of The Dick Cavett Show — which aired on ABC from 1968 to 1975 and on public television from 1977 to 1982 — Dick Cavett is also the co-author of two books, Cavett (1974) and Eye on Cavett (1983). He has appeared on Broadway in Otherwise Engaged, Into the Woods and as narrator in The Rocky Horror Show, and has made guest appearances in movies and on TV shows including Forrest Gump and The Simpsons. Talk Show, Dick Cavett’s extremely popular blog, currently appears on The New York Times website. Click here for a link to the blog. Mr. Cavett is looking forward to journeying to Ten Chimneys to share stories about his extraordinary life and career, including his recollections of the legendary episode of The Dick Cavett Show that featured Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, and their lifelong pal Noël Coward.


Jim and Gloria Irwin
Saturday, June 26th, 8:00PM
Conversations at Ten Chimneys

In the 1970s, Jim Irwin (the voice of the Packers) and his wife Gloria Irwin (Wisconsin Public Television) unexpectedly found themselves becoming friends with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne – who were relishing their retirement at Ten Chimneys. Mr. and Mrs. Irwin will share stories and anecdotes about their many visits to Ten Chimneys and their impressions of Lynn and Alfred in their golden years.


Concluding Presentation of the Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Program
Saturday, July 17th, 8:00 PM

On the final night of the 2010 Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Program, master teacher Barry Edelstein and the ten Lunt-Fontanne Fellows from around the country will offer a glimpse of what took place during their week at Ten Chimneys. Mr. Edelstein will explain how he and the actors approached their work, and why. To illustrate the work that was accomplished, the Fellows will share a selection of the scenes and monologues on which they worked with Mr. Edelstein. This is the first (and most likely only) time that these ten nationally acclaimed actors will share a stage together. People who saw the 2009 Concluding Presentation called it “the finest evening of theatre we’ve ever seen.”



Tonight at 8:30 by Noël Coward
Monday, August 30th, 7:00pm
Play Readings at Ten Chimneys

A delightful (and rarely produced) collection of short plays by Noël Coward. Written in 1936 and originally performed by Noël Coward and his lifelong friend Gertrude Lawrence. Four short plays, with live performances of Noël Coward songs throughout the (2-hour) evening.



Design for Living by Noël Coward
Monday, October 18th, 7:00pm
Play Readings at Ten Chimneys

Widely regarded as one of Noël Coward’s greatest, and funniest, plays. The original production starred Coward and his dear friends Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. It was the culmination of a plan the trio hatched before any of them had “made it.” And, as Coward predicted in a diary entry from 1919, when the play premiered in 1933, “the theatre world had a new cosmos.”



Robert Osborne
Saturday, November 13th, 8:00 PM
Conversations at Ten Chimneys

The host of Turner Classic Movies television network since its debut in 1994, Robert Osborne is widely considered one of American film’s preeminent authorities – and enthusiasts. Mr. Osborne is known as “the official biographer of the Oscars.” His book, 75 Years of the Oscar, was written at the request of the Academy and was praised as “a scholar’s dream, a researcher’s paradise, a movie buff’s heaven.” He has interviewed countless legendary filmmakers, has a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, and he serves as the Academy’s official greeter at the Academy Awards ceremony. Mr. Osborne will share insights and stories about the evolution of American film during the time that the Lunts ruled the American stage.

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