STAGES St. Louis

Co-founded in 1987 by Founding Executive Producer Jack Lane and Founding Artistic Director Michael Hamilton, STAGES has been providing St. Louis with Broadway quality Musical Theatre and performing arts education for 37 years. Today STAGES employs a year round staff of 42 overseeing a $5M budget. In the Season, 150 additional artists, artisans, crew, and staff bring Mainstage shows to life from May - October at the brand new, 529-seat Ross Family Theatre at The Kirkwood Performing Arts Center.

STAGES has produced 121 musicals, with more than 3,800 performances playing to over one million patrons to date. The STAGES Performing Arts Academy education and outreach programs reach more than 4,500 community members annually. All productions and programs are fully accessible, including sensory-friendly family performances, inclusive education classes, and ASL and visual description performances.

In 2023, STAGES will present Elton John and Tim Rice's AIDA; the first play at STAGES in over 30 years, CLUE; and the rock 'n roll classic, MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET - featuring the music of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.

The STAGES Performing Arts Academy (SPAA) is in its 19th year of offering performing arts education and outreach programs. Created in response to many schools scaling down or eliminating arts curricula, the SPAA has become a leader in addressing the arts gap in the St. Louis community. The SPAA will not turn a student away due to financial need, providing more than $70,000 in scholarship assistance and underwriting annually. SPAA education and outreach programs reach more than 4,500 students and community members every year, with more than 2,500 students receiving direct classroom instruction.

Funding from Give STL Day will be specifically allocated to support STAGES' artistic and education programs.