NEW BERLIN, Wis. — When a passerby pulls up to 3240 S. Hickory Road in New Berlin, they’d have no idea of the extravagance inside the seemingly simple ranch home.
The home’s owner, John Dolphin, said that “wild factor” is what gets him the most when people first walk in.
Inside the 2,514-square-foot home, there isn’t a space left untouched by a theatre or Broadway influence, with everything from “Les Misérables” to old “Dracula” and “Mame” show posters, and an entirely finished theatre in the basement.
It’s a collection Dolphin spent decades creating in the midst of a thriving theatre career.
‘I paint with light’
Dolphin remembers sitting on the balcony of Milwaukee’s old Granada Theatre as a boy, watching the worker go back and forth between the two projectors.
“That just fascinated me,” he said. “And I thought, someday, I’m going to have a movie theater.”
It’s a dream that stuck. Fresh out of high school, in 1955, Dolphin went to work for the company Mid-west Scenic and Stage Equipment Co., which provided scenery for high school theatre productions.
He said his first job was at the Jewish Community Center, helping them run the light board. That first job would propel Dolphin into a career that took him everywhere from Russia to Japan to New York. He later bought that very same company.
It made for some unique experiences. Dolphin described multiple instances where he was able to get behind-the-scenes access to theatre productions and world-class auditoriums. His name, he said, is even scrawled on a beam 120 feet in the air in the Metropolitan Opera House.
During his decades-long career, he also had a brush with one of Broadway’s greatest legends. Dolphin said on multiple occasions he wrote to Steven Sondheim about the shows he was working on, inviting the famous composer to see them for himself. Those letters were always answered.
“He would write back and sign it. I still have the stationery with his signatures on it,” Dolphin said.
Even after Dolphin retired in 2000, he kept at it. He created his own company called Candela, which means a measure of light.
For Dolphin, lighting a show is an art. It’s something that has always come easy to him.
“I paint with light. That’s what I do,” he said.
Dolphin carried that mindset with him when he built his home on 3240 S. Hickory Road.
Building a theatre
It all began when he and his wife attended a home show in Milwaukee at the former Milwaukee Auditorium (now the Miller High Life Theatre). In 25 words or less, attendees could win the model home on display.
“Well, we didn’t win the house, but we liked the design by Ray Prell and bought the land in New Berlin,” Dolphin said.
The house was bigger — and more theatrical, just the way Dolphin wanted it. That started with a spiral staircase down to the basement, much like the ones you see backstage at a theatre. On each step is a different carpet square taken from auditoriums across the state.
Most pieces in Dolphin’s basement theatre came from projects he worked on or connections he had in the industry.
He started building it after someone called him to ask if he wanted two projectors from Miller Brewery.
“They were exact projectors that I ran in junior high school and in high school and I couldn’t believe that I would get these antique projectors,” he said.
The screen went up after that, along with motorized curtains, and the rest fell into place.
Throughout the years, he acquired more memorabilia, including an old ticket and popcorn machine from Marcus, a stained glass window from Skylight Music Theatre, a lavatory sign from the old Pabst Theater, benches from a production of “Mame” at St. Joseph’s High School, three sample theatre seats and so much more.
“I just kept going and going and going and going,” he said.
The result was a full-blown theatre in the basement, with several other rooms attached: one called the quiet room and another, the smoking room (formerly the playroom for his children).
But it wasn’t all just for show. Dolphin said he often entertained parties of up to 70 people down in his little theatre, which he calls the Flicker Liquor Emporium. He’d act as the bartender and make hot popcorn in the kettle. Then he’d show a shorter film, a cartoon or previews of upcoming attractions.
“Just enough to get the flavor. I’d go from one projector to another. It’s just like in the real movies,” he said.
There’s one factor the ties everything together: the lighting. One might say a step into Dolphin’s basement is akin to stepping on the stage. Every corner is lit intentionally, down to the entrance hallway with colored spotlights on timeless theatre posters.
Many of those posters hold a special place in Dolphin’s heart. He hand-selected each one from New York after his yearly trips to see Broadway shows.
Now, some of that "artwork" will be going with him as he prepares to leave his home and move into a smaller space at Saint John’s On The Lake in Milwaukee.
“It’ll be like an art gallery,” he said of the new space.
The rest of Dolphin’s treasures will be put up for an estate sale at his home on March 22-24.
He said leaving the home is bittersweet, but that he’ll always cherish the memories he made there.