It’s summer, and in St. Louis that means it’s Muny time! (Complete with cheesy TV commercials!)
The Muny is a St. Louis tradition that is somewhat hard to explain to people who haven’t been there. In one way, it’s easy—it’s an outdoor theatre that shows seven large-scale musicals every summer, and they do a lot of their casting in New York, which means that many of the performers are Broadway and touring veterans, from Tony winners like Randy Graff (Hello Dolly, 2006), to touring favorites like Eric Kunze (who has been in several Muny productions and who stars as Joe Hardy in Damn Yankees this year), and rising stars like 2010 Tony nominee Kate Baldwin, who has been in five shows at the Muny—most recently last year when she played Marian in The Music Man. They usually put on well-known, crowd-pleasing shows that draw thousands every year to their large outdoor venue in Forest Park, just a few blocks from our house.
That’s the easy part to explain. The hard part to describe is the whole atmosphere of the place, which is a large part of what makes it such a beloved St. Louis institution despite its drawbacks (which I will also try to explain). The Muny is an experience. It’s not just about going to a show. It’s about going to a show with a picnic dinner and sitting in the grass surrounded by hundreds of others before the show, taking in the live pre-show entertainment provided by various local acts. It’s also about lining up for ice cream and popcorn at the concession stands, and sitting down in the huge stadium-like outdoor auditorium while huge fans buzz overhead on hot days before the show. It’s also about rising for the National Anthem before the show like at a baseball game, but unlike at most sporting events, the vast majority of the thousands of people in attendance actually sing—at the top of their lungs. It’s also about watching possums run back and forth in the lighting rigs, sometimes during the show. And because it’s outdoors and the stage is so huge, it’s about special features like an actual helicopter flying over for Miss Saigon (2008), and real fireworks at the end of Meet Me in St. Louis (2004). The stage is so big that colossal productions like Les Miserables (2007) actually have to have larger casts than Broadway. Also, the outdoor setting and the stage backed by real trees adds an interesting element to the sets. And then, there are the free seats in the back, which have an atmosphere of their own.
I mentioned drawbacks, and there are a few. First, the schedule tends to get repetitive. There are certain shows (like Cats, Annie, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music) that seem to be on a perpetual five year cycle. If you go to the Muny long enough you are guaranteed to see many repeated shows. My family and I moved to St. Louis in 2004, and we’ve already seen them repeat quite a few shows, like The Music Man, Meet Me in St. Louis and Annie, and this year they have already repeated Beauty and the Beast, and will be repeating The Sound of Music and Cats. Next year’s season is bound to bring a few more repeats from the previous 5-6 years, as well. There are classic shows such as Carousel that have not been performed at the Muny in over 20 years, because the Muny has a voting system. Every year they pass out surveys and the audience members vote for the shows they want to see. This results in many repeats and a few debuts of newer favorites like The Producers (2008) and Hairspray (last year), but also often results in some well-known classics being overlooked and more obscure shows being ignored, with occasional exceptions such the the excellent 2007 production of The Pajama Game, which hadn’t been performed at the Muny since 1968. This also often precludes productions of some of the edgier or grittier shows like Sweeney Todd and Rent.
Still, despite the drawbacks, the Muny is well-loved fixture of summers in St. Louis, and we always try to see at least some of the shows every year. This year, we plan on seeing Titanic, Damn Yankees and Show Boat. We have seen some first-rate productions, as well as some less-than-great ones, but it’s always an experience, and it’s one you can only get in St. Louis.
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