Community members from around the St. Louis region filed into the Anheuser-Busch Performance Hall last January for the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance, including a performance from Voices of Jubilation under the direction of Maria A. Ellis, at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)

New York Times best-selling author Stassi Schroeder will grace the stage of the Anheuser-Busch Performance Hall this Thursday in the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center as she discusses her latest book, “You Can’t Have It All!” in an event sponsored by The Novel Neighbor bookstore.

The next night classical music-lovers will file into the E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee Theater to catch the latest performance of the renowned Arianna String Quartet as it kicks off its 2024-25 season, playing music from Franz Joseph Haydn, Leoš Janáček and Ludwig van Beethoven in a concert titled “Kreutzer.”

On Saturday, the Lee Theater and Promenade and Terrance Lobbies will be abuzz with attendees of the African American Healthcare Summit, presented by the African American Health Care Association of Missouri, that aims to identify resources, strategies and other mechanisms to improve the quality of health care for people of color in the United States.

St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page delivers his annual State of the County Address in the E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee Theater last January at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center.

It will all make for a fairly typical weekend in the busy life of the Touhill, which last year marked 20 years bringing audiences of all types to the North Campus of the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

“We have been booking the heck out of this place because we want to increase UMSL’s visibility in the community, in the region and even nationally,” said Jason Stahr, who serves as the director of the Touhill Performing Arts Center. “We want to show our patrons from all around the area that this is a place to be.”

The Touhill hosted more than 200 events during the 2024 fiscal year that ended June 30. During that time, the building welcomed 113,000 patrons while generating revenue to support the facility and the broader university, primarily through rental fees to outside organizations.

Some 30,000 of those guests came to witness the 29 performances by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Next month, UMSL will begin its second season partnering with the symphony to host concerts at the Touhill while the orchestra’s permanent home, Powell Hall, completes its expansion and renovation.

All the activity has been a welcome change from only a few years ago, when the COVID-19 pandemic left the 123,000-square-foot facility all but shuttered for nearly a year.

Guests fill the Terrace Lobby at the 2023 Founders Celebration.

Even when the building resumed holding performances with a young artists competition, the first event in April 2021, it did so with limited capacity as patrons were required to observe social distancing.

Stahr, who first began working at UMSL within weeks of the center’s grand opening in 2003, has led the Touhill team on a long and deliberate journey to revive the building and ensure it remains a valued asset for UMSL and the surrounding community.

Before the pandemic, the Touhill typically hosted around 175 events each year, for some of which the Touhill served as the presenting organization. The decision was made just before 2020 to cease being a presenting organization and make the building primarily a rental facility, turning over the responsibility of arranging the acts and events and the costs of attracting audiences to outside groups.

It’s also freed up the building to be used more frequently by members of the UMSL community. University-connected events filled between 40-50% of the Touhill’s calendar last year. It held everything from the homecoming dance and convocation to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance,  the annual State of the University Address and several concerts put on by the UMSL Department of Music. Later this month, alumni, friends and university supporters will gather at the Touhill for the annual Founders Celebration.

Piano players Daniel Schene, Daniel Kuehler, Susan Lutz, Joseph Welch and UMSL faculty member Alla Voskoboynikova perform Alla Turca from Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A Major during the All-Steinway Extravaganza last November in the Lee Theater.

“The biggest issue right now is the calendar,” Stahr said. “Everybody wants a weekend. I’m like, ‘There are only 52 of them.’ They’re pretty much gone, but a lot of university groups are also willing to look at a Tuesday or Thursday, which those dates are great. I can do stuff on those days pretty much all the time.”

The Touhill staff, which now counts 11 full-time employees with approximately 40 part-time employees and 50-60 student workers, also provides services, including audiovisual tools and support, to groups across campus.

Stahr and his team have also worked to make the Touhill an attractive destination for outside entities, whether as a venue for performers or a host for corporate conferences.

“We’re a great place for comedy, a great place for jazz, a great place for dance,” Stahr said. “We have done a little bit of everything. We’ve had rap concerts. We’ve had thrash metal. We’ve had speakers. We’re flexible.”

In addition to the frequent performances by the symphony this year, the Touhill will once again host the St. Louis Ballet’s presentation of “The Nutcracker” this year with 11 performances between Nov. 30 and Dec. 23.

Webster Groves School District music educator Andrew Pulliam directs the orchestra last February during the Des Lee Fine Arts Festival at the Touhill.

Each of those outside shows and events are opportunities to bring new people to the university, aware that each newcomer could be a potential student or parent or relative of a potential student.

“One of the things that I tell my staff is that the Touhill, harkening back to the original architectural design, was meant to be a lighthouse,” Stahr said. “The building is kind of dark on the outside, but there’s light emanating from within. I embrace that. We are a lighthouse to this campus.

“We want whatever we bring into this building to turn into something else that happens on this campus – whether it turns into an inquiry, an application, something for student involvement, or they come back for another show. We want it to turn into something more so that every engagement we have with the public winds up being a positive engagement for the university.”