Cary Grant and Gene Kelly have been there. So have Carol Burnett, Angela Lansbury, Ethel Merman and Debbie Reynolds. Not to mention Jennifer Holliday, and Ben Vereen, and Joel Grey, and Bernadette Peters.

The Muny has lured plenty of stars to St. Louis, some who grace the theater’s massive stage in Forest Park as established talents, others who begin long careers there. But perhaps more notably, after spending the summer sweating through breakneck rehearsals, those stars decide to come back.

As the Muny accepts its regional theater Tony Award on Sunday, I asked several Broadway actors, including some of this year’s Tony nominees, about what drew them, often more than once, to St. Louis. Their interviews have been edited and condensed.

Danny Burstein

Burstein, a Tony nominee this year for his role in “Gypsy,” has been in 11 shows at the Muny, starting the summer he was 19.

The Muny’s executive producer Ed Greenberg was actually my teacher at Queens College. Ed took me under his wing and became a great mentor and a dear, dear friend. And when I was 19 he said, “Why don’t you come out for the summer?” It was my first Equity contract.