Five years after it opened, the verdict seems to be in: The Kirkwood Performing Arts Center is a boondoggle. It’s easy to see how large swathes of the community arrived at that conclusion. The $26 million, 525-seat venue has lost the city an average of $225,000 per year on operations and costs it an additional $1.3 million per year in debt service on the bonds that paid for its construction, according to recent Post-Dispatch analysis.
Worse still, the facility was paid for with bonds backed by the city’s half-cent parks and stormwater sales tax—a tax many residents had approved with the understanding that its revenue had been earmarked for the construction of a state-of-the-art community recreation center. The city has since spent roughly $11 million renovating the existing community center, but the building still falls short of the quality of recreational facilities sported by Des Peres (The Lodge) or even Sunset Hills. The salience of that opportunity cost undoubtedly helps to undermine KPAC’s public standing: Not only was it a waste of money, but it’s a waste of money that could have been used to fund a very specific need.
I understand that sentiment entirely—and I really do think that a top-notch community center would have been a better use of city resources—but I also think that there are a few reasons to be a little more optimistic about the investment that is KPAC than the current conventional wisdom holds (and no, they’re not housing).
Agglomeration Effects
To start, let’s quickly zoom out. My girlfriend, Jocelyn, is an incredibly talented actor. Naturally, lots of her friends are actors as well and it follows that I find myself talking about the profession a lot. Whenever the topic of St. Louis comes up in these conversations, I’m frequently surprised to find out that many of these professional actors not only know about The Muny, but hold it in high esteem. Muny productions are considered a legitimate gig for Broadway-caliber talent during the summer months (Broadway’s off-season). That reputation (complemented by the Fox’s productions, as well as those of the region’s secondary venues, like The Rep in Webster) allows St. Louis to punch above its weight in the industry. Something similar can be said of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, which is positioned solidly in the second tier, just after the “Big Five” orchestras: Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago.
All of this is to say that St. Louis, as a region, has the institutions to be able to support a community of performing arts professionals disproportionate to its modest population. These institutions pay competitively, boast top notch venues, and put on enough shows to keep people solidly employed. KPAC isn’t Prada Marfa; it’s not going to draw people from far and wide on its own. But it is a venue that can play an important role in the region’s broader live performance ecosystem.
Live Entertainment in the AI Era
The other thing you hear if you find yourself talking to actors as often as I do, is that they’re all terrified that Artificial Intelligence is going to take all of their jobs away and kill the industry.
But while AI might serviceably churn out action flicks and television series within the near future—and might even do it remarkably well; given that Marvel-type blockbusters already rely extensively on CGI (computer generated imagery), it’s not inconceivable that AI could represent a substantial leap forward in some use cases—I also think that the ubiquity of that content, and especially the ubiquity of its perfection, may eventually begin to weigh on the audience as rather dull and uncompelling. A robot might be able to shoot a three pointer with 100% accuracy, but it doesn’t mean I’d rather watch that than watch Steph Curry shoot ’em with 42% accuracy. The uncertainty of it all—the mistakes and the triumphs over those mistakes—is a feature not a bug of live spectacle.
I think the same might be increasingly true of live theatre and music in the near future. The imperfections and inherent humanity of an imperfect performance make it more emotionally resonant—and allow it to command a higher price—than the commoditized perfection available on the screens in our homes and pockets. It’s just a hypothesis, but if it comes to fruition, the decision to build KPAC might indeed prove to be prescient yet.