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April 27, 2011, City Stage

Theatre through early May

Tue, Apr 26, 2011

“Ben Franklin’s Apprentice” at the Coterie Theatre; “Ruined” at the Unicorn Theatre; “Peer Gynt” at Kansas City Rep; “Let’s Do It: The Lyrics of Cole Porter” at Quality Hill Playhouse; “A Moon for the Misbegotten” at William Jewell College.

For complete Theatre listings through 2011, click here to visit the KC Events calendar.

   

The Coterie Theatre
Ben Franklin’s Apprentice

Runs April 4 through May 7
For tickets call 816-474-6552 or online at www.coterietheatre.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

"I dare you lightning strike! I am not afraid!" Dazzling special effects highlight this tale of an American hero's struggle to tame Heaven's own power- electricity. Long before the Declaration of Independence, Ben Franklin was a scientist obsessed with the mastry of "electrical fire" in the face of opposition from church and family. When he rescues a wounded boy from a cruel apprenticeship, together they confront ignorance with the power of the questioning minds. Blending historical fiction with science, this thrilling play for familys culminates on a story night with a crack of thunder, a blinding light, and an experiment that changed the world!

Read the KCM review here.


Unicorn Theatre (with UMKC Theatre)
Ruined

Runs April 13 through May 1
For tickets call 816-531-7529 x10 or online at www.unicorntheatre.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Entertainment and escape await at Mama Nadi’s bar and brothel in civil-war-torn Congo. But is she protecting or profiting from the women she shelters? Inspired by her interviews with Congo refugees, Nottage has crafted an uncommonly human story with humor and song served alongside postcolonial and feminist politics. Ruined was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

Read the KCM review here.
 

Kansas City Repertory Theatre
Peer Gynt

Copaken Stage
Runs April 22 through May 22
For tickets call 816-235-2700 or online at www.kcrep.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Get ready for a wild, hilarious and surreal adventure in this brilliant adaptation of Ibsen’s famous play. Based on a Norwegian folk tale,Peer Gynt, one of Ibsen’s most influential and famous plays, is almost never staged because of its vast scale. David Schweizer, takes this “impossible to produce” play and turns it into a hilarious comic adventure that will delight audiences and take you on a journey you will never forget.

 

Quality Hill Playhouse
Let’s Do It: The Lyrics of Cole Porter
Runs April 29 through May 29
For tickets call 816-421-1700 or online at www.qualityhillplayhouse.com
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Our popular tribute to Cole Porter returns to the stage! Called a "seamless flow of words and melodies with a genuine dramatic arc" with "an exquisite selection of the composer's classics" by The Kansas City Star, this show weaves together songs and stories that tell the life of the sophisticated songwriter who penned such classics as "Begin the Beguine," "Night and Day," "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "Let's Do It, Let's Fall In Love."

 

Peters Theatre @ William Jewell College
A Moon for the Misbegotten

Runs April 29 through May 1
For tickets call 816-415-7590 or online at www.jewell.edu
Call or visit the website for performance days and times.

William Jewell Theatre presents its Senior Theatre production of Eugene O’Neill’s classic play.

 

For complete Theatre listings through 2011, click here to visit the KC Events calendar.

By Victor Wishna

Victor  Wishna

Senior Editor, Theatre; Theatre and Features Contributor
Victor Wishna is a writer, editor, and author, among other things. A graduate of Stanford University and the New School's creative writing MFA program, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Baltimore Sun, the Miami Herald, the Kansas City Star, Humanities, and other major magazines and newspapers. He contributes a weekly real estate feature to the New York Post and his column “Letter from New York” is syndicated nationally.

With photographer Ken Collins, he published In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights (Umbrage Editions, 2006), for which he conducted and edited interviews with 61 prominent stage writers including Edward Albee, August Wilson, Tony Kushner, Wendy Wasserstein, and many others. The book won a 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Medal (www.intheircompany.com).

He has always maintained a love for theatre, as a writer, an audience member, and even an actor, appearing in several community and semi-professional productions. As an undergraduate, he studied acting and playwriting with Anna Deavere Smith, in addition to journalism and psychology (and not engineering or medicine).

After nearly 12 years in New York City, Victor recently returned to his hometown with his wife, Annie, also a K.C. native. When not writing for publication or pleasure, Victor is honing his stand-up routine, which he has performed at numerous clubs and special events around New York, the Midwest, and elsewhere. In June 2010, he was named New York’s second-funniest amateur Jewish comedian by The Jewish Week. Seriously.

 

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