Crews at The Muny in Forest Park have started ripping out all 11,000 of the outdoor theater's signature green seats, kicking off a $9.5 million renovation of the auditorium that will remake the seating bowl before curtains rise again next summer. Muny officials say the chairs, now 25 years old, have grown rusted, cracked and faded, sitting atop aging concrete that also needs to be replaced.
The removal, first reported by FOX 2, marks the visible start of a renovation plan the venue announced in December. According to The Muny, the seats had reached the end of their functional life, and maintenance crews could no longer even source replacement parts because the original manufacturer went out of business — leaving full replacement as the only real option.
Funding the Overhaul
The $9.5 million price tag is being covered by a group of private donors, including the Crawford Taylor Foundation, the E.C. Simmons III Foundation, the Robert J. Trulaske Jr. Family Foundation, the Interco Charitable Trust, and an anonymous donor, per the theater's own announcement. That philanthropic backing is funding more than new chairs: the project also calls for rebuilding the seating bowl, replacing aging concrete, and improving stormwater drainage throughout the auditorium.
Beyond the structural work, The Muny says the renovation will add cupholders to front-row seats, replace all theater railings, and improve sightlines along the cross aisles. The venue is also exploring premium seating configurations in underused areas of the house, though the exact scope of those changes has not been finalized.
A Slightly Smaller Bowl
The theater currently holds roughly 10,700 flip-down seats, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in December that the finished renovation will slightly reduce that total capacity. The Muny has not detailed exactly how many seats will be lost, but the change comes even as the venue leans on its history as a civic gathering place — it still offers roughly 1,500 free seats in the last nine rows of the theater on a first-come, first-served basis for every performance, a tradition that dates back decades at the nation's oldest and largest outdoor musical theater.
That balance between accessibility and modernization matters given how many people pass through the gates each summer. During its 106th season in 2024, total attendance reached 347,865 guests across seven productions, with nearly 100,000 of those visitors attending on free seats or through community access programs, according to figures the theater released afterward.
Offseason Construction, No Disrupted Shows
Work on the seating bowl, concrete, and drainage systems is set to begin this month following the close of Season 108, with completion targeted ahead of Season 109's opening in June 2027. The Muny has structured the entire project around the offseason calendar specifically so no summer performance schedule is affected by the construction.
For theatergoers hoping to keep a piece of that history, The Muny began offering retired seat pairs to the public for $500 per unmounted pair back in December, with buyer pickup scheduled for this month. The seat sale gave fans a tangible way to take home a bit of the auditorium before it disappears for good.
Part of a Bigger Modernization Push
The seat replacement follows an earlier $19.4 million stage and infrastructure renovation The Muny completed between 2018 and 2021, according to H3 Hardy Collaboration, which replaced the theater's century-old stage and added four-story towers equipped with lighting, sound, and audience-cooling blowers. Together, the two projects reflect a years-long effort to modernize the historic venue without disturbing its identity in Forest Park.
The Muny was established in Forest Park in 1916 and officially opened on June 5, 1919, with a production of Shakespeare's As You Like It, according to Missouri Life. More than a century later, it remains the nation's oldest and largest outdoor musical theater — a distinction Forest Park has leaned on before, including when the park earned a No. 1 ranking in a national USA Today reader poll that cited the outdoor theater as a signature attraction.
