St. Louis Public Library: The Muny: Reunion Under The Stars

St. Louis MO

26 October, 2021

3:33 AM

Description

Press release from the St. Louis Public Library: October 18, 2021 Judith Newmark's The Muny celebrates almost 90 years of Muny history. Now over a century old, The Muny is a multi-generational tradition of Broadway-style entertainment in St. Louis, and Newmark's book highlights the photography and behind the scenes of Muny productions over the decades. As an introduction to Muny history, it may prompt a closer look at the years you may have missed. In an outdoor venue like The Muny, everything tends to be bigger than expected. For the 100th anniversary of The Muny, the finale of Meet Me in St. Louis featured live fireworks to the astonishment and delight of the audience. In other years, Muny magic has brought surprises like basketball teams and swimming pools, vehicles driven onto the stage -- even helicopters! Perhaps what is most overlooked at The Muny is the sheer size of the seating capacity. With a max audience of 11,000, even a bad night of several thousand attendees dwarfs your standard Broadway venue (which has a minimum of 500 seats). By comparison, the Gershwin Theatre (Broadway's largest theater) has a capacity of 1933 people. The Fabulous Fox theater, if you were wondering, seats 4500. If you thought that Rodgers and Hammerstein would be among the top contenders, you'd be right! Arguably the most popular composer duo of the 20th century, Rodgers and Hammerstein were repeat guests at The Muny in the 1950's, and some of their well-known hits were amongst the top Muny productions: Oklahoma!, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. Other Muny favorites include The Music Man (Meredith Wilson), Fiddler on the Roof (Bock/Harnick/Stein), and a stage version of The Wizard of Oz, which the Muny first presented in 1942. To revisit past years of The Muny's history, visit the Special Collections Department of the St. Louis Public Library, or, you can request bound copies of past Muny programs from our stacks. For more information on The Muny's earliest seasons, check out our St. Louis Municipal Theatre Scrapbooks collection, digitized online. This press release was produced by the St. Louis Public Library. The views expressed here are the author's own.