For years, Stages St. Louis has been holding steady in Kirkwood while doing some serious fundraising for a new space in Chesterfield. (Look-Listen first heard about these plans not so long after landing at the magazine—gulp!—8 years ago.) Now, it has made a major transition into that space: on Monday, Stages' Box Office relocated to the Kent Center for Theatre Arts at 1023 Chesterfield Parkway East. The new facility, formerly Kol Am, means Stages now has a 22,000-square-foot space with lots of flexibility, including administrative offices and classrooms.
Though the Main Stage shows (see the schedule below) will take place in the Robert G. Reim Theatre in Kirkwood for the foreseeble future, and full-year and Spring Sampler Classes will still be held at 444 Chesterfield Center (where the Performing Art Academy has been housed since 2004) summer camps will be in the new Kent Center, and from Fall 2013 on.
Stages' website says the new facility will employ 30 full-time staff and 40 part-time instructiors, and that the building will have "three dance studios, two acting studios, two voice studios, a multi-purpose student lounge, a welcome center and box office, administrative offices, as well as a performance hall with flexible seating to be used for main stage rehearsals, dance classes, educational presentations, donor and community events and special performances."
The new box office at the Kent Center is open Monday through Friday, 10am to 5pm. And if you're far from Chesterfield and don't want to burn the gas, you can still buy 'em by phone (314-821-2401) or online, 24 hours a day, at stagesstouis.org.
Here's the 2013 lineup:
May 31 through June 30: Always…Patsy Cline
June 19 through June 30: Disney's Cinderella
July 19 through August 18: Legally Blonde, the Musical
September 6 through October 6: My Fair Lady
Update: an earlier version of this article state that Main Stage Productions would be held in Chesterfield; they will remain in Kirkwood at the Robert G. Reim Theater. We sincerely regret the error.
