About Us

The Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts is dedicated to the availability and accessibility of the cultural arts in mid-Missouri by:

• Providing an artistic home for the visual and performing arts - produced by local, regional and nationally-recognized arts organizations.
• Providing arts education for the community's youth and adults.
• Preserving the community's cultural heritage within the timeless structure of the historic Missouri Theatre.

On the National Register of Historic Places, the Missouri Theatre is central Missouri's only pre-depression era movie palace and vaudeville stage. The theater's interior is an ornate baroque and rococo style of the Louis XIV and XV periods. It was designed after the Paris Opera House by the Boller Brothers Architects of Kansas City and built in 1928. Much of its original detailing survives, including Belgian marble wainscoting, plaster reliefs, stained glass art panels under the balcony and an 1800-pound Italian auditorium chandelier featuring crystal prisms and etched panels.