Construction begins in KC on Starlight Theatre’s $40 million upgrade, adding canopy

One year after a $40 million campaign to upgrade Kansas City’s Starlight Theatre was announced, construction has begun at the 7,800-seat outdoor amphitheater in Swope Park.

An event to break ground at the amphitheater, which is to celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2025, was held Wednesday afternoon. Construction is expected to be complete by April 2026.

As a video created by J.E. Dunn Construction highlights, the theater’s prime feature will be an arching and opaque canopy, connected to two yet-to-be-constructed towers, and spanning the theater’s front 3,200 seats. The canopy is designed to shade patrons from rain, wind and Kansas City’s often-searing summer sun to allow more programming such as summer afternoon matinee events.

“We started talking about this campaign before the pandemic,” Lindsey Rood-Clifford, Starlight’s president and CEO, said this week. “I’m excited to see something that we’ve been dreaming about since 2018 finally coming to a reality.”

Rood-Clifford said $25 million of the $40 million has already been raised, with $5 million donated by the Sunderland Foundation , $2.5 million from the Hall Family Foundation and $3 million from the city of Kansas City. Other major gifts are coming from the William T. Kemper Foundation and Morgan Charitable Foundation.

Starlight had expected to receive an additional $5 million from the state of the Missouri. In June, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed a $50.5 billion budget for the fiscal year but also vetoed millions of dollars in spending to have gone to Kansas City organizations , including $5 million for Starlight.

“We were a little surprised by that,” Rood-Clifford said. “That was part of our original Phase 1 funding. So we’ll be going back this year — of course, there will be a new governor — to see if we can secure that.”

Fundraising is continuing. Starlight also hopes to receive financial support from Jackson County, as well as possible grants from Kansas City along with private donations.

Beyond the new canopy, upgrades are to include a new truss, video screens and production light bridge above the stage.

The east side of the complex will receive a larger kitchen. The west side is to have a new entryway and expanded and renovated restrooms with added changing tables and the venue’s first nursing rooms.

Construction is to occur in two phases, each to take place between October through April, in the theater’s off months. Starlight’s Broadway shows and concerts, which run from May through September, will not be interrupted.

Phase 1, from October 2024 through April 2025, will focus on building two new towers created to support the canopy, truss and light bridge at the front of the stage. Building the restrooms had originally been part of Phase 1, but was moved to Phase 2 because of the state’s veto of $5 million.

Phase 2, from October 2025 through April, 2026, will focus on installing the new canopy, production truss, light bridge and video screens. The new restrooms, entryway and kitchen are part of this phase.

Starlight’s plan includes using about $4 million of the $40 million to help fund five community programs:

▪ The Arts Bridge program, in which Starlight offers up its facilities to partner with and aid other arts organizations such as Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey, the University of Missouri-Kansas City Center for Neighborhoods and HeARTland Arts KC .

▪ Technical theater training to introduce area high school students to careers in lighting, costuming, set design, sound and stage management.

▪ Musical theater residency in which students from elementary schools with limited resources take part in a semester-long process to stage their own musicals and create lasting arts programs.

▪ Expanded community ticket program in which Starlight offers free access to performances.

▪ Performances for young audiences series, which offers children and their families field trips and other means to attend matinees and weekend family shows at Starlight.

Next year, Rood-Clifford said, Starlight will look different.

“May of 2025 is the next time we’ll really see guests out there,” she said. “The thing that will be most visible next summer will be a new set of towers. It’ll very much look a little like ‘excuse our dust’ next summer. But people will see that we are in motion.”