the muny (Municipal theatre association of St. louis)
“The Muny has partnered with Core10 for our next phase of capital improvements, which includes a complete reimagining of our backstage support spaces. From the beginning of the project, we’ve been most impressed with Core1O’s attention to our needs through time spent observing our operations and talking with team members. With this insight, they’ve developed a plan which truly reflects our vision for the future.”
PROJECT: The Muny Backstage
LOCATION: St. Louis, MO
SCOPE: 37,o00 sf
Reuse, Renovate, and Adapt
STATUS: Completed
CLIENT REP: Sean Smith, Director of Operations
DESIGN TEAM: Amanda Partyka Norris
Megan Mitchell
Michael Byrd
Sheila Miranda
THE CHALLENGE:
The Muny is a Broadway-style outdoor musical theatre that seats 11,000 guests. This local opera has produced every show in-house since its opening in 1919. Such an extensive production requires local actors, costume designers, stage managers, an A/V team, painters, builders, ushers, administration, marketing, and a nurse.
Due to this complex mix of workers combined with renovations and additions stitched together over the last one-hundred years, the administrative and shop/actor/support areas at The Muny Backstage required an overhaul.
OUR APPROACH - way beyond the spreadsheet:
From the start of this project, we kept our focus on a new architectural design that acknowledges every part of the show-making process for this unique theatre company. The qualitative part of our process became tangibly important. Spreadsheets could not lead us to the best solutions for this space. Instead, we let The Muny team show us what they needed.
We interviewed every facet of the production teams and staff.
We attended shows both front-of-house and back-of-house.
We sat in on meetings.
And we watched them while they rehearsed, painted, built sets, and designed and stored costumes.
We were excited to see how each function operates, how they got there, and why. Our observations led us to understand the nuances of how materials and talent flow prior to, during, and after a show. And that enabled us to provide them with solutions customized to meet each team’s backstage challenges and opportunities.
OUR SOLUTION - reimagine the current space:
The assumption at the onset was that more space was needed. But our observations led us to recommend reimagining the current space with an emphasis in three areas.
1. Improve adjacencies
· Move all costume programs into the same building
· All patron functions move to public-accessed areas
· Upper floors = administrative team offices
· Bottom floor = actor spaces, kitchen, and gathering space
2. Increase community and connectivity
· Most actor spaces had exterior access points, but no internal access. The new design includes a corridor on the first floor to connect actor spaces, the lounge, and the rehearsal room with year-round access.
3. Improve accessibility and wayfinding
· Establish one clear point of entry for backstage teams and visitors
o Include a new elevator to reach all floors
