A trophy is headed to Forest Park.
The Muny will be awarded the 2025 Regional Theatre Tony Award, producers of the annual honors announced Wednesday.
The Tonys primarily recognize this season’s Broadway productions. But there is an annual distinction for one regional theater that has shown sustained onstage excellence and contributed to the national growth of theater.
“What the award says is, ‘You did what you said you were going to do,’” said Muny President and CEO Kwofe Coleman, “and what we said we were going to do was to produce theater at the highest level and make it accessible to this community, and represent St Louis and be a source of civic pride.”
The award has been given 46 times since 1976.
Past winners include the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, Oregon Shakespeare Company in Ashland, Oregon, and Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. The Muny is the 12th Midwest-based theater to win the Tony Award for regional theater; Chicago theaters have won on six occasions.
The Muny has performed in Forest Park since 1919, in a space that theater lovers donated to the city.
The partnership has held strong as the theater has thrived: The Muny maintains its theater, offices and production facilities on land leased from the city for a symbolic annual fee of $1, but the independently operated organization is responsible for maintaining and improving the grounds. It launched a $100 million capital campaign timed alongside its 100th season in 2018, and subsequently invested much of the freshly raised funds into a new stage, rehearsal spaces and other updates.
After the 2026 season, the Muny will direct a $3 million gift from the William R. Orthwein Jr. and Laura Rand Orthwein Foundation toward a new pedestrian walkway between the theater and its lower parking lots.
The Muny makes 1,500 seats for each performance available to the public for free — or more than 100,000 across a typical season.
“This theater was created by this city, by this community. It's a civic idea, so we're celebrating that along with the idea of excellence and creating [onstage] excellence,” said Artistic Director and Executive Producer Mike Isaacson.
“We've worked really hard to transform the Muny and make it into a great theater for our community, a theater unlike any other theater in the world,” Isaacson added.
The theater hosted 347,865 audience members last year, throughout a summer season dedicated exclusively to musicals. It’s the largest outdoor musical theater in the country, with a seating capacity of about 11,000.
The Muny begins its 107th season on June 16 with its first-ever production of “Bring It On: The Musical.” The seven-show season runs through Aug. 24.
The 2025 Tony Awards will be awarded June 8 at Radio City Music Hall.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the membership of the Zoo-Museum District, which only includes the Missouri History Museum, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the St. Louis Science Center.
