Summer theater heats up in St. Louis with the Muny, Stages, Circus Flora and more (2024)

Theater doesn’t stop in the summer in St. Louis. In fact, it heats up with the Muny doing a bonkers schedule of Broadway-caliber musicals, Stages starting its summer festival, and St. Lou Fringe and Tennessee Williams Festival kicking off in August. Here is what’s unfolding this summer.

‘As You Like It’

Love is in the air this summer in Forest Park, where St. Louis Shakespeare Festival is presenting “As You Like It,” about a group of people who are banished from court and find themselves in the woods of Arden where anything feels possible. Of course, since it’s Shakespeare there’s a lot of gender confusion, music, clowns and puns galore. Beth Bombara performs original music, and there will even be a few live farm animals on stage.

‘Steel Magnolias’

How to describe “Steel Magnolias,” which is kicking off Stages St. Louis’ 2024 season? Based on a 1989 film starring Julia Roberts, Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine and Dolly Parton, it showcases close relationships between women. It’s tragic. It’s hilarious. You’ll be quoting it for years.

Circus Flora ‘Marooned!’

Circus Flora, a one-ring circus, showcases acrobats, trapeze artists, clowns and more in its show “Marooned!”

‘Ripcord’

What do you do when you have a roommate you can’t stand? Make a bet to see who gets to keep the room, of course! Marilyn and Abby are retirement home roomies who can’t stand each other in this funny yet poignant play at Stray Dog Theatre.

‘Woman in Mind (December Bee)’

After getting hit in the head with a garden rake, Susan starts having hallucinations. In them, her life is far better than what it is in reality. But then her dream world becomes a nightmare.

‘Les Misérables’

“Les Miz” is definitely one of the most famous musicals of all time. It was a first date for the Obamas. It’s a movie. SNL spoofed it in a song about eating lobster at a diner. So check out this cultural touchstone at the Muny about Jean Valjean, a former convict who breaks his parole and is pursued by the relentless police inspector Javert.

‘King Hedley II’

In the Black Rep’s “King Hedley II,” a formerly incarcerated person is selling stolen refrigerators trying to save up enough money to buy a video store. The play is the ninth in August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, which examines the Black experience in America decade by decade. This play is set in the 1980s but also continues stories from his play “Seven Guitars.”

‘Titanic on Ice: The Musical’

Magic Smoking Monkey Theater is spoofing the wildly popular film “Titanic,” that launched a million crushes when Leonardo DiCaprio (Jack) wooed Kate Winslet (Rose) on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the “unsinkable” ship. You’ll definitely laugh, but you probably won’t see any actual ice skating.

‘Dreamgirls’

“Dreamgirls” follows the ups and downs of a Motown-style girl-group through the ’60s and ’70s as they achieve super stardom.

Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’

Go “Under the Sea” with this popular show, which the Muny is staging for the third time. Ariel wants to walk on land to shoot her shot with a cute prince, but she has to make a difficult choice about what she’s willing to give up to find love.

Summer New Musical Festival

Tesseract Theatre company will present two new musicals during its festival this summer, “My Heart Says Go” from July 11 to 21, and “Cascade’s Fire,” a modern Antigone story, from July 19 to 28.

10th Annual Labute New Theater Festival

This festival from St. Louis Actors’ Studio features a slate of one-act plays written by professional playwrights and high schoolers. Famed playwright Neil Labute also contributes a show. To celebrate the 10th anniversary, a collection of previous plays will be on sale in book form.

‘Fiddler on the Roof’

Generational strife abounds in the Muny’s “Fiddler on the Roof” about a simple Jewish man, Tevye, who holds onto Jewish customs, but his daughters have other ideas.

‘Alice by Heart’

Alice Spencer is in London during World War II. She’s underground hiding out from the Blitz trying to read “Alice in Wonderland” to her friend, but a nurse destroys her copy. She decides to recite it by heart, causing a few things to get switched around.

‘Red’

Mark Rothko is the envy of every artist. The abstract expressionist has just gotten the largest commission in the history of modern art from New York’s Four Seasons restaurant. As he works on the paintings though, things come to a head with his assistant Ken, and Rothko wonders if he is up to the task of creating his crowning achievement.

Disney’s ‘Newsies’

It’s New York 1899. Papers have morning and evening editions, and kids called newsies sell them on the street, making pennies on the paper. When the publishers get greedy and cut into the kids’ profits, the newsies decide to strike. But will it work?

‘The Tempest’

St. Louis Shakespeare Festival keeps bringing you the Bard for free all summer long with TourCo, its touring company that performs at parks and other public spaces. It’s presenting a 90-minute version of “The Tempest” the magic-filled play about Propsero and his daughter Miranda who live on a lonely island full of spirits and a monster, Caliban.

‘Waitress’

Grammy Award-winning Sara Bareilles created the music and lyrics for this popular musical, which is based on the 2007 film about a woman who wants to get a new life somewhere else, but is currently stuck working in her small-town bakery.

‘Ruthless!’

What’s scarier than an 8-year-old determined to star in her school’s play? Almost nothing when she’s ruthless enough, and Tina Denmark is. The diva-in-training will play Pippi Longstocking.

‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’

Tennessee Williams crammed all his favorite things in this play: sex, lies and Southerners. The Tennessee Williams Festival is presenting “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” about Maggie “the Cat” who is unhappily married to Brick, the son of a rich Delta cotton-planter. Now the patriarch is dying and the family is sinking under the weight of all the lies it’s told.

‘In the Heights’

If you want to binge on Lin-Manuel Miranda credits, you can check out his first big hit “In the Heights” at the Muny. It’s about a guy who is aching to leave his tight-knit community in Washington Heights for bigger things. Then, you can head to the Fox a few weeks later and check Miranda’s follow-up work, “Hamilton.”

‘Life Upon the Wicked Stage’

The Tennessee Williams Festival will showcase three of Williams’ one-act plays, “In Our Profession,” “The Magic Tower” and “The Fat Man’s Wife,” all of which are about theater and entertainment. The theme of this year’s festival is Grand Center where a young Tennessee would have soaked up all the entertainment offerings when he lived in St. Louis. You can catch panel discussions about Williams before the show on Aug. 10 starting at 9 a.m.

St. Lou Fringe Fest

Each year, you can catch avant-garde, new, and just plain weird plays at the St. Lou Fringe. Keep your eyes peeled for the festival announcement June 2.

Twice Upon a Stage

Chorus of Fools is a new theater company in St. Louis and for this show it is presenting two plays in one space as a twist on a new play festival.

‘[Title of Show]: The Gender Bend’

This meta musical is about the act of writing a musical. But it’s not like “The Producers” where they’re making a musical about Hitler or something. No, the foursome in this show is writing a musical about writing a musical. Prism puts on this postmodern show with a gender-bend, swapping the male and female parts.

Cole Porter’s ‘Anything Goes’

“Anything Goes” is one of those Great American Songbook musicals. Songs from the show like “You’re the Top,” “Anything Goes” and “I Get a Kick Out of You” are standards sung by great vocalists like Tony Bennet and Michael Bubble. But now you can hear them in context as the S.S. American sets sail and four people on it find themselves on an unexpected voyage toward true love.

‘Hamilton’

When Ron Chernow wrote his biography about Alexander Hamilton, he probably never imagined it would be best remembered (and most widely consumed) as the juggernaut musical penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda. But that’s exactly what happened when Miranda used the book as source material for his award-winning show about our Founding Fathers.