About Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre
 ...and some Shakespeare thing people keep talking about. St. Louis Shakespeare was founded in 1984 by the company's Artistic Director Donna Northcott. Since its inception, SLS has undergone several changes. The first 'season' was a single production with performances over one weekend. Gradually the company drew larger audiences and what originally started as an experiment to see if St. Louis audiences would accept a company specializing in Shakespeare's works has lasted 19 years. The summer season now has 3 productions running from July to August and has been expanded to include two plays by Shakespeare and a classical non-Shakepearean production, such as plays by George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Moliere, Tom Stoppard and Euripides. In 1993 the company added a winter season to its repertoire and its first production was a contemporary setting of Macbeth. These winter productions specialize in encouraging attendance by young audiences from schools in and around St. Louis, and have become very popular in a very short space of time. 1995 also saw the start of another spin-off from the company in a Touring Company which travels to high schools in St. Louis and western Illinois. Perhaps one of the most bizarre offshoots of the company was the formation of the Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre, which specializes in some of the strangest and wackiest theater in St. Louis. This strange cousin of SLS was co-founded by Donna Northcott and Mitch Herzog, SLS 's former Managing Director, and is completely independent from its parent company. The company performs in the late-night realm, and its first production was an all-live on-stage version of Ed Wood's classic Glen or Glenda?. This premiere production attracted sellout performances, and audiences have been genuinely appreciative of these truly goofy productions. The actors which form the 'company' are drawn from local talent following open call auditions. Many 'old timers' are part of the company but many fresh new faces appear every year. Performing arts students from the universities in St. Louis join the company in the summer and provide some of the joie de vivre that gives the company its energy. There is fierce competition every year for the prize roles, perhaps more so amongst the women due to the scarcity of female roles in Shakespeare's plays.
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