Mike Isaacson, artistic director & executive producer

Mike Isaacson is the artistic director & executive producer of The Muny, the third person to hold this position in the theatre’s 107-year history. In his 14 seasons, Isaacson has produced 89 Muny shows, 37 new to the Muny stage. Isaacson is also a nine-time Tony Award-winning Broadway producer. Under his leadership, The Muny received the 2025 Regional Theatre Tony Award in recognition of its “continuous level of artistic achievement contributing to the growth of theatre nationally.”

“The most talented actors working today [are] on the Muny stage,” BroadwayWorld wrote in 2024. And in 2025, a New York Times article recognized The Muny’s ties to Broadway: “You hear from all of the other Broadway performers, word of mouth, ‘When you’re not doing a Broadway show, where do you want to work in the summer?’” frequent Muny star Jessica Vosk said. “And nine times out of 10, it’s always The Muny.”

During Isaacson’s tenure, The Muny has produced new developmental productions of Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, The Wiz, Lerner and Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon and The Unsinkable Molly Brown. In its record-breaking centennial season, The Muny became the first theatre in the world to produce the legendary Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, doing unprecedented archival work on both the artistic and the business side to make it happen. In that same epic season, The Muny produced the U.S. regional premiere of Jersey Boys.

Isaacson has changed the look and feel of The Muny, overseeing a transformation in every aspect of production that culminated in 2019 with the arrival of the extraordinary James S. McDonnell Stage, a state-of-the art stage house that includes revolutionary LED technology, automated sets and a host of other innovations.

“Under the leadership of executive producer Mike Isaacson, the quality of Muny productions rose like the proverbial phoenix,” the Riverfront Times wrote after his first season at the helm. 

During his tenure, The Muny embarked on an unprecedented $100 million capital campaign, completed within five years. In summer 2020, when the COVID pandemic paused onstage performances, Isaacson created and produced Summer Variety Hour Live!, five livestreamed productions that reached a worldwide audience of more than 400,000. In summer 2021, The Muny produced five full onstage productions, receiving acclaim for their artistry and presence.

The 2022 season’s productions received 21 award nominations from the St. Louis Theater Circle, more than any other theatre. In 2023, The Muny bested its record with 26 nominations, and for its 2024 season, The Muny received 30 nominations — a record for both The Muny and the St. Louis Theater Circle.

For 27 years, with partner Kristin Caskey, Isaacson has produced more than 40 Broadway musicals and plays, national tours, off-Broadway plays and London productions.

This season on Broadway, they produced Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years, co-starring Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren. Last year they were the lead producers of the Broadway revival of Gutenberg! The Musical, starring Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells, and the transfer of the highly acclaimed Second Stage production of Appropriate, for which Isaacson won his ninth Tony Award.

In 2023, they produced the acclaimed Broadway revival of Parade, starring Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond, now on a national tour. Parade received Best Revival of a Musical from the Tony Awards and Outstanding Revival of a Musical from both The Drama Desk and The Outer Critics Circle. In 2022, they produced Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, which subsequently had a record-breaking run at London’s Savoy Theatre.

Other recent Broadway productions include David Byrne’s American Utopia, for which they received a special 2021 Tony Award. It also became a multi-Emmy Award-nominated film by Spike Lee for HBO, for which Isaacson also served as an executive producer. In 2015, he received the Tony Award for Best Musical for the groundbreaking musical Fun Home.

Other producing highlights include A Doll’s House, Part 2; The Humans (2016 Tony Award, Best Play); Bring It On: The Musical (2013 Tony nomination, Best Musical); Red (2010 Tony Award, Best Play); Legally Blonde: The Musical (2011 Olivier Award, Best Musical); Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002 Tony Award, Best Musical); You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown; If/Then; The Seagull; Burn This; Caroline, or Change; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, starring Gary Sinise; and Death of a Salesman (1999 Tony Award).

For the Independent Presenters Network (IPN), Isaacson served as producer for the Broadway productions of Spamalot (2005 Tony Award, Best Musical), Ragtime (revival) and The Color Purple. All told, his productions have received more than 139 Tony Award nominations and 40 Tony Awards.

Isaacson and Caskey also are developing Becoming Nancy, a new musical that had its world premiere at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre in 2019 and a subsequent production in 2024 at The Birmingham Rep in Birmingham, England. Isaacson also served as a supporting producer of The Unsinkable Molly Brown at The Transport Group. 

For 14 years, Isaacson supervised the U.S. Bank Broadway Series, bringing more than 100 Broadway productions to St. Louis’ Fabulous Fox Theatre. In 2010, he was the youngest recipient of the Broadway League’s Samuel J. L’Hommedieu Award for Outstanding Achievement in Presenter Management. Isaacson has also served on the Board of Governors, the Executive Committee and the Governance Committee of The Broadway League. He served on the search committee that selected league head Charlotte St. Martin. In January 2017, Isaacson was honored for “Excellence in the Arts” by the Arts and Education Council in St Louis. In March 2017, he also received the Robert Whitehead Award for Excellence in Commercial Producing from Broadway’s Commercial Theatre Institute. He holds a B.A. and an M.B.A. from St. Louis University.

AUGUST 2025