Muny at 100: St. Louis' outdoor theater returns to its roots in the '90s (2024)

In the late 1980s and early ’90s, the Muny’s future was a big question mark.

Edwin R. “Bill” Culver III, its forceful president and longtime leader, contended that the enormous outdoor theater in Forest Park was ... too small.

He wanted to add around 7,000 seats and 4,000 parking spaces. That, Culver said, would make the Muny a better venue for concerts — and concerts were the future.

Others — among them Post-Dispatch critic Joe Pollack — suspected the outdoor theater, where attendance was dwindling, had run its course. The Muny was rarely mounting its own shows anymore and already was running a winter season at the Fox. Under those circ*mstances, why not move Muny tour shows indoors (where it’s air-conditioned) all year long?

“It makes me sad to say it,” Pollack wrote, “but I’m afraid that the outdoor Muny is no longer a proper theatrical site.”

But early in the decade, the Muny took a completely different direction. It largely gave up the tour shows and concerts to return to its original mission: producing musicals. On the Forest Park stage. For the St. Louis audience.

Superintending the transition was a new team: executive producer Paul Blake and general manager Dennis M. Reagan.

The (loud) sound of music

Concerts had a good following, eager to hear major artists in all kinds of genres. Teaming with Steve Schankman of Contemporary Productions, the Muny Starfest showcased acts from Bob Dylan to Al Jarreau, from Kenny G to Alabama.

And there was the matter of money. A concert, Culver said, could bring in as much money in a single night as a musical could in a week. Beer sales played no small role in that; one concert with only 5,500 in attendance brought in $38,000 in beer sales.

Of course, an all-concert season would require major architectural changes; Culver estimated the theater would need 18,000 seats. That couldn’t happen overnight. (“The mills of the Muny grind more slowly than those of the gods,” Pollack observed.) Was the vintage structure worth that kind of expense?

Besides, not everybody was delighted by the prospect. Alderman Dan McGuire, who represented the area, said it was essential to figure out what effect concerts would have on the neighborhood. One resident, William Hoekstra, was willing to guess.

“Imagine,” Hoekstra wrote in a Post-Dispatch letter to the editor, “18,000 beer-guzzling rock fans ... descend on your neighborhood, with noise, litter and traffic. ... This is what Muny expansion means.”

But things were changing. In 1989, longtime executive producer Ed Greenberg retired. A couple of years later, so did Culver, who had developed Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Blake came to town for Muny auditions in the spring of 1990. In his first move, before he’d even arrived, he made an announcement so surprising it made Post-Dispatch columnist Jerry Berger sit up.

“Wonder of wonders,” Berger wrote, “a notation on the audition notice reads, for the first time in memory, ‘Please note that a policy of non-traditional casting (the casting of ethnic minorities or female actors in roles where race, ethnicity or sex is not germane) will be observed.’”

There was more in the offing. The first Blake-Reagan season included six shows, four produced by and for the Muny. The lawn by the east pavilion featured preshow entertainment — barbershop quartets, folk singers, high school bands, all kinds of things. An engineer was hired to improve the sound system. An audience questionnaire gave theatergoers a vote on the coming season.

Like Greenberg, Blake directed some shows himself, starting with the 1990 production of “Bye Bye Birdie.” Pollack was delighted.

“If the style — and substance — of ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ is an example of what Paul Blake is bringing to the Muny, well, happy days are here again!” he exulted in his review.

Pollack certainly didn’t care for everything Blake did. But he appreciated his style. Reviewing “No, No, Nanette,” Pollack observed that “it displayed the Blake touch of high energy, rich costumes, excellent dancing and a fine set … (Carol Lawrence and Lara Teeter) steal — and stop — the show. ... Blake has renewed everyone’s energy, everyone’s spirit.”

Paul Blake in a nutshell

A Muny production of “The Wizard of Oz” was supposed to have 30 children in red costumes portray a field of poppies. Five days before the opening, Blake called longtime Muny costume coordinator Peter J. Messineo. What if there were 100 children instead?

“All Pete said was, ‘A stage of poppies — that would be beautiful, wouldn’t it? And we did it,” Blake told the Post-Dispatch. (OK, he told me; after Pollack retired in 1995, I became the theater critic.)

Names in lights

With his New York connections, Blake brought in a lot of Broadway talent, “unpackaged” by tour operators. In the 1990s, those stars included Joel Grey in “George M!,” John Cullum in “Man of La Mancha” and Madeline Kahn in “Hello, Dolly!”

Another Dolly, Gretchen Wyler, made that performance the swan song of a long show business career that began in the Muny chorus. Bob Keeshan, TV’s Captain Kangaroo, played the Wizard in “The Wizard of Oz.” Keeshan shared the stage with his 9-year-old granddaughter, Kaelan Sullivan, of St. Louis County, who played a poppy.

Pat St. James reprised her Muny turn as Reno Sweeney in “Anything Goes” in 1992, 20 years after she stepped into the role as a chorus girl to replace injured star Ann Miller. Davy Jones of the Monkees, who had played the Artful Dodger in “Oliver!” on Broadway when he was a boy, came to the Muny to be in the show, this time as fa*gin.

Theodore Bikel and Chaim Topol played Tevye in (separate) productions of “Fiddler on the Roof.” But that chance never came for Ken Page, a black St. Louis-born actor who got his start in the Muny chorus before he starred on Broadway.

“Be brave,” he pleaded, via Post-Dispatch reporter Patricia Corrigan. “Be brave and cast me as Tevye! After all, blacks and Jewish people have a great deal in common, and the role is universal now.”

But Page did become part of the “Muny rep company,” as people began to call actors whom Blake cast repeatedly through the years. They included Emily Loesser, Jeb Brown, Karen Morrow, Eric Kunze and frequent co-stars Victoria Mallory and Joel Higgins.

Unbeaten paths

A 1990 production of “Cinderella on Ice” made a novel choice for the summer venue. St. Louis’ Arts & Education Council used the big theater to present a lavish Children’s Art Festival, complete with giant puppets and young people’s performances from Circus Flora, the Black Rep, Metro Theater Circus (as Metro Theater Company was then known) and an opera performed by Parkway fifth-graders.

The Muny and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra teamed up for a concert of Gershwin, Copland and Beethoven in honor of the Olympics. The ad featured a cartoon of a fit-looking Beethoven in running clothes, carrying a torch.

As these offbeat offerings arrived, concerts went by the wayside. In 1991, Post-Dispatch columnist Joan Dames reported that “no one at the (Muny guarantors’) party seemed particularly cowed by the fact that Steve Schankman, who formerly booked concerts for the Muny, had picked up his marbles and moved his game to the Riverport Amphitheatre.”

One of the guarantors, Mary Jane Thaman — daughter of one of the Muny’s original guarantors — told Dames she considered the loss a gain. Without concerts, she said, the theater could “return to the original concept of the Muny as a place for locally produced shows with big casts and big production numbers.”

Presumably Thaman felt the same way the next year, when the Fox Theatre pulled out of its arrangement for a winter Muny season of tour shows. There was talk that the Muny would move those shows over to Kiel Opera House (now the Peabody).

But Robert R. Hermann, who chaired the Muny board’s long-range planning committee, wasn’t intrigued. “The Muny never made a nickel on the seasons at the Fox,” Hermann said.

Too darn hot?

Weather, of course, continued to plague the outdoor theater. When “Evita” opened on a night that boasted both 100 percent humidity and a second-act downpour, leading lady Saundra Santiago gamely offered that it was “tremendously exciting” to perform under such conditions.

Not everyone was so cheery, especially when they had to rehearse outdoors in the heat of the day.

“Four rusty metal ceiling fans whir in a labored rhythm above the Muny Theatre’s open rehearsal stage,” reported Judy VandeWater of the Post-Dispatch. “The temperature stayed above 95.”

“I’m drinking so much water, I feel like an ocean,” chorus singer Tamara Tungate of St. Peters told VandeWater. Chorus dancer Paul Tomak of St. Louis was uncomfortable, too.

“When you are learning a new show, you can’t stop just because it’s hot,” he explained. Still, “the hotter it gets, the more we are dragging.”

And that was in rehearsal clothes. Costumes made matters worse. Reviewing “I Do! I Do!,” I wrote that I had never felt for actors “the way I felt for John Davidson and Judy Kaye. ... On a night when it was 90 degrees half an hour after the show had ended ... they had to wear: a flannel nightshirt, a wool overcoat, a velvet smoking jacket, a fleecy bed jacket, a fur cape ... (and) high-necked, long-sleeved gowns.”

They also spent a lot of time “chatting and even singing, in bed — under piles of blankets.” Post-Dispatch reporter Kathleen Nelson’s sensible advice for Muny-goers — wear loose-fitting clothes in silk blends, linen or open-weave cotton — wasn’t much help on the other side of the lights.

Make it a Muny night

Attendance began to grow. In 1992, there were 385,407 Muny-goers, the best number since 1985. The next year brought 404,193, the most since 1978. Reagan credited the upturn in part to the audience questionnaires. But there were other factors, too.

For one thing, Muny Express bus service was restored in 1989, after a seven-year lapse. For another, the Muny was proud to promote itself — and not just in the summertime.

“All I want for Christmas is my two front seats” at the Muny, according to one holiday ad. Come spring, the same approach worked for Mother’s Day.

“Make her a Muny Mom,” the copy read, with a gift “she’ll enjoy all summer long.” Season tickets, the ads pointed out, didn’t need to be extravagant. Mom could see “all 7 shows for as a little as $23.50.”

Want to make it look more like a traditional present? Tuck the tickets into something appropriate. Post-Dispatch Eclectic Shopper (and my sister) Marcy Cornfeld came up with all kinds of goodies for the Muny-goer, such as a well-equipped picnic basket ($270 at Neiman Marcus), a sturdy Muny tote bag ($7 at the concession stand) or pretty paper fans ($1.50 each at Oriental Ginseng and Gifts).

Sincerely yours

Through the 1990s, the Post-Dispatch letters to editor columns dealt with the Muny a lot more than you might guess.

Some letters were warm, praising a show or a performer. Barb Weldele of Arnold wrote to thank usher captain Debbie Smith, who stayed with Weldele and her sisters when their car wouldn’t start after a show.

And many voiced the same complaints that readers had expressed since the 1920s. They weren’t satisfied with Muny acoustics (“The sound man must be a deaf egomaniac bent on sad*stic torture,” wrote Gordon I. Herzog of St. Louis), Muny material (“‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ is ... heretical,” John W. Brunner, Wellston) or Muny prices (“Why does the Muny have rows and rows of empty seats in the Terrace A section when a drop in price to $1 or $2 from $5 would fill all of them?,” Bonnie Allen Schmidt, Fenton).

But in the 1990s, another issue came up. When the Americans with Disabilities Act was a year old, Nancy Leonard decided she’d had enough.

“This is 1991, and they’re still segregating people with disabilities for no good reason,” said Leonard, who used a wheelchair. “It’s wrong if I can’t sit where I want.” Along with the Muny, she was dissatisfied with the seating options at Riverport (now Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre) and the Fox.

It took a while, but five years later Paraquad president Max J. Starkloff wrote a letter applauding efforts “to enhance the Muny experience for people with disabilities.” Working with Paraquad, the theater made a plan to improve access ramps, to arrange more seating so parties of people with differing abilities could sit together, and to provide additional parking for disabled patrons.

This old house

When the Muny celebrated its diamond season, Mary Lee Hermann and Donna Wilkinson co-chaired a party where Donna McKechnie and Ken Page entertained. “The Muny has never had a benefit before,” Wilkinson told Joan Dames. But after 75 years, she explained, “things are beginning to wear out and need replacement.”

No kidding. In 1993, Muny board member Robert R. Hermann (Mary Lee’s husband) told Jerry Berger that the Muny needed to raise “between $5 (million) and $6 million for new seats and much-needed concrete work.” Two years later, Hermann’s estimate had risen to $10 million.

One high-ticket item: replacing the cracked, deteriorating concrete stage, held up by aged posts reinforced with wood. “It’s still safe, but it’s not what it should be,” Hermann said.

It was also time to expand the concession and restroom facilities. (Reagan called the intermission lines for the ladies room “legendary” — but not in a good way.) The lighting needed to be upgraded. And all 12,000 seats needed to go; they were so old that nobody made replacement parts if something broke.

In 1996, the city of St. Louis gave the Muny a 50-year lease; before that, there was no written commitment. St. Louis would provide more money for the building; the Muny, which would pay $1 a year in rent, guaranteed that 10 percent of the seats would remain free.

One of the most important improvements went unseen: The Muny refurbished its onstage turntable. With a diameter of 48 feet, it’s the largest outdoor theatrical turntable in the world.

The turntable allows multiple sets to be onstage at the same time; when the turntable revolves, the scene changes. When it was installed in 1930, it really sped up performances.

But in 1997, Reagan said that all of the turntable’s parts — the steel skeleton, the subfloor and the table itself – needed to be repaired or replaced.

And they were. The next year, expanded restrooms and concession areas opened. “In fact,” Reagan said, “the restrooms were one of the hits of the season.”

Meet them at the Muny

For a lot of people, the Muny is like a magnet. The St. Louis Strutters, a troupe of former professional dancers age 55 to 73, were part of a revue that Blake dreamed up for Cole Porter’s centennial. Local Catholic sisters with good singing voices were recruited for a Muny-size chorus in “The Sound of Music.”

In 1996, 94-year-old Mildred Rothenberg Feldman of Olivette was back on the stage where she had been a chorus girl in 1922, singing with about 70 other chorus emeriti in a concert version of “The Desert Song.” Vendor David Neiman, 18, of Clayton hawked lemonade and Cracker Jack with original parodies of show tunes that he sang as he worked. “If I sing, my sales go up by at least $20,” he told Post-Dispatch columnist Elaine Viets.

Jerry Berger even reported that Anne Desloge Bates — whom he called Queen Anne, because of her social status — would ride side-saddle, wearing a veil, in the hunt scene in “Mame,” along with her husband and other members of the Bridlespur Club.

But if any one person in the 1990s stood for the Muny’s irresistible pull, that person was Jack Frolichstein. A retired junior-high math teacher, he spent his summers at the Muny.

When Patricia Corrigan interviewed him, Frolichstein happily recounted his varied duties: working the stage door, running the guarantors’ parking lot, chauffeuring entertainers. Basically, he explained, he just liked being at the Muny.

“I’ve always been interested in theater,” Frolichstein said.