Theater

Performing arts organizations in St. Louis are finding different answers to the question of how to stage in-person shows safely during the coronavirus pandemic. As spring weather makes outdoor performances more feasible, event producers make indoor spaces safer, and more people receive the COVID-19 vaccine, more organizations are deciding that the show will once again go on.

St. Louis Shakespeare Festival eyes a June 2 return to Forest Park for its first production of "King Lear," after canceling its 2020 show because of the coronavirus. The cast is composed entirely of artists of color.

Metro Theater's "Jacked!" production incorporates storytelling, poetry and hip-hop to spread an age-appropriate message about substance abuse and its effects on the community.

Arts organizations in the St. Louis region will soon be able to apply for some of the $15 billion in grants Congress approved for coronavirus pandemic relief.

The beloved children's book "The Snowy Day" is now “The Glowy Snowy Day,” a pandemic-safe drive-thru puppet experience. The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis' Adena Varner explained the impetus for this joint production with Kansas City-based StoneLion Puppet Theatre, which opens soon on the campus of Webster University.

Golden Globe-winning actress Regina Taylor kicked off her tenure as the Rep's playwright-in-residence with "Love and Kindness in the Time of Quarantine," a compilation of monologues and songs addressing life in a period of social distancing.

Longtime Muny leader Dennis Reagan will step down in 2022. One of the longest-serving arts leaders in the region, Reagan began his affiliation with the Muny as a teenager on the cleanup crew.

Theater is back on a St. Louis stage this month — and for the first time since the region shut down in March, it’ll be indoors and with an in-person audience. The production: a remounting of Eric Bogosian’s “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll” by the Midnight Company.

Playwright Melda Beaty's "Coconut Cake" and "Front Porch Society" showcase the culture and concerns of older Black Americans.

Monty Cole’s new play, "Black Like Me,” grapples with John Howard Griffin’s book of the same name, a memoir by a white journalist who posed as a Black man in the Deep South in 1959. Cole has said, “If the original book was an Idiot’s Guide to Being a Good Ally in 1961, the play is an Idiot’s Guide to Being a Good Ally in 2020.”