Last night we went to the last show of the season at the MUNY!! The Muny is an amazing 10,000 seat outdoor theater within Forest Park in St. Louis. Every summer they put together productions of 7 different musicals, each one runs every night for one week. The cast, crew, and orchestra for all of the productions at the Muny are nothing less than professional quality. Many of the actor/musicians that we saw this season have extensive experience on Broadway and with nationally touring Broadway shows. The best part about the Muny (at least for us!!) is that they give away every seat in the last section of the theater on the night of each show! We were able to see 7 really great musicals for only $18!!
The first show we saw was the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast. We got to the theater early, took dinner and our friend Emily with us, and waited in line for about 30 minutes to make sure that we'd be able to sit in the free section. We had a great time seeing the first show, and an even better time singing along to all of the songs!!
The second show of the season was Titanic. We were both expecting this show to be, well, somewhat of a downer... We really liked it!! The music/singing was awesome - the leads were so talented. We weren't surprised that the boat sank at the end, but we were surprised when it started to thunder during the first act and rain at intermission. We waited out the dark clouds, and enjoyed the second act :)
After Titanic was Damn Yankees. Our friends Emily and Andy came with us to this one. We told Andy that he'd like the show because it was about baseball :) This show, like the others, was great!
By the time we went to see Cats, we had developed our new Muny strategy: show up right before the show starts and try for the free seats - if there aren't free seats, then pay for the cheap seats (at $9 a seat it's worth it to skip sitting in the heat for the extra hour). A couple of minutes before the show started there were TONS of free seats left... We later decided that it was because Cats is, at least in our opinion, a terrible show with not a lot of plot. The dancing was really impressive, but the storyline left quite a bit to be desired...
We tried our "show up right before the show" strategy again with The Sound of Music... not so much luck.
Everyone loves this show! We made it to the box office and bought the only 2 seats we paid for of the season. We enjoyed the show, and continued to sing the songs from the show to each other for days afterward!!
We took Ben's parents, well actually they took us, to Footloose - It was so much fun to see this show with them!! The dancing was really great and exciting, and the singers were fabulous. We loved the 80's style band (and costumes!). Erin, of course, wore boots to this performance :)
The last show of the season was, unfortunately, also the hottest show we went to. We really felt like we were living in the early 1900's by the Mississippi River with no A/C... Our new friends Chris and Liz braved the heat and humidity to come to this show with us - welcome to St. Louis!! The singers in this show were fantastic, and as the Director of the Muny said in his pre-show speech, this show was "the cherry on top of a great season!"
