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

Coterie Theatre
The Wiz
Runs June 21 through August 7
For tickets call 816-474-6552 or online at http://www.coterietheatre.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Celebrate the power of believing in yourself in the Tony Award winning musical based on the tale we all know by heart. The soaring songs are "Ease on Down the Road," "Brand New Day," "No Bad News," "Be a Lion." It's the timeless classic you know and love with a modern, soulful twist. Join Dorothy and her friends Scarecrow, Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion on their fabulous journey as they "Ease on Down" the yellow brick road in a multicultural view of Oz. A brand new version of Broadway's The Wiz, appropriate for all young people. 

Read the KCM review here.

American Heartland Theatre
The Honky Tonk Angels
Runs July 8 through August 21
For tickets call 816-842-9999 or online at www.ahtkc.com
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

The creator of “Always…Patsy Cline” combines over 30 classic country tunes with a hilarious story about three gutsy gals who are determined to better their lives and follow their dreams to Nashville.  The all-hit song list includes I’ll Fly Away, Stand by Your Man, 9 to 5, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Ode to Billy Jo, These Boots Are Made for Walking, Rocky Top, and I Will Always Love You.  This charming, foot-stompin’ musical has played to sold-out audiences across the country. 
 

Kansas City Fringe Festival
The 7^th Annual KC Fringe Festival
Runs July 21 through 31
For tickets call 816-516-4750 or online at http://www.kcfringe.org/
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

The 7^th Annual KC Fringe Festival is an unfiltered, uncensored sampling of Kansas City’s cultural arts and runs July 21 - 31st, 2011.  The 11-day festival is jam-packed with live theater, dance, performance art, visual art, spoken word, puppetry, storytelling, film and fashion.  At 17 venues throughout Kansas City, the KC Fringe Festival presents 358 live performances, 327 in the performing arts category alone, and exhibitions by 82 participating companies.

Starlight Theatre
Cinderella
Runs July 25 through 31
For tickets call 816-363-7827 or online at www.kcstarlight.com 
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Presented by Beauty Brands Salon Spa Superstore. Shortly following the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Starlight presents Cinderella. The magical fairy tale features Rodgers and Hammerstein's memorable score, including "Impossible" and "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?" Hearts still soar when the glass slipper fits. Suitable for all audiences.

Starlight Theatre
Mamma Mia!
Runs August 2 through 7
For tickets call 816-363-7827 or online at www.kcstarlight.com 
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Presented by Panera Bread. The ultimate feel-good show, Mammia Mia! combines ABBA's greatest hits, including "Dancing Queen," "S.O.S.," "Super Trouper" and "The Winner Takes It All," with an enchanting tale of love, laughter and friendship. Whether it's your first visit or 14th, see the show that has the whole world singing! Suitable for most audiences.

Musical Theater Heritage
Evita
Runs August 11 through 28
Off Center Theatre at Crown Center
For tickets call 816-221-6987 or online at www.mthkc.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Eva Peron was a second rate actress, but when her lover, Colonel Juan Peron, becomes elected president she becomes First Lady of Argentina and wins the hearts of the entire population. This fantastic musical won seven Tony Awards in 1980.

Starlight Theatre
Xanadu
Runs August 15 through 21
For tickets call 816-363-7827 or online at www.kcstarlight.com 
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Presented by Farmers Insurance. A musical adventure on roller skates, the stage production of Xanadu is an outlandishly enjoyable spoof of the 1980 cult movie classic starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly. Get ready for disco balls, rainbows and an original score that features such pop-rock hits as "Magic," "Evil Woman" and "Suddenly." Suitable for all audiences.

Kansas City Actors Theatre
The Birthday Party
(Part of The Pinter Project) 
Runs August 16 through September 11
Union Station’s H&R Block City Stage
For tickets call 816-235-6222 or online at www.kcactors.org 
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

The Birthday Party was the first full-length offering from British playwright Harold Pinter, who is now widely regarded as the theatre’s master of enigma and menace. The play takes us to a godforsaken seaside guest house run by Meg and her husband Petey. The only guest is Stanley, a former pianist with a shady past, upon whom Meg dotes. Into this uneasy family come two additional guests, a pair of suspiciously underworldly types who seem to have some unfinished business with Stanley. The style of The Birthday Party swings from the broadly comic to the deeply unnerving, with a nod to the absurd along the way. It’s easy to see why The Sunday Times critic Harold Hobson, responding to the first production of The Birthday Party, wrote that “Pinter, on the evidence of this work, possesses the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London.”

Kansas City Actors Theatre
An Evening of Three Harold Pinter One-Act Plays
(Part of The Pinter Project) 
Runs August 18 through September 11
Union Station’s H&R Block City Stage
For tickets call 816-235-6222 or online at www.kcactors.org 
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

The Kansas City Actors Theatre presents three one-act plays by Harold Pinter in one performance as part of its “Pinter Project”. “The Lover” is a comic and slightly scandalous look at how a marriage can adapt and change. “The Collection”, first produced 50 years ago, is an early exploration of a favorite Pinter theme, betrayal. Finally, the reminiscences of a married couple in Pinter’s dramatic sketch “Night” highlight the folly of conflicting memories.

One Night Only
Musical Theater Heritage
Musical Monday
August 1, Off Center Theatre at Crown Center
For tickets call 816-221-6987 or online at www.mthkc.org

 An impromptu evening of musical theater hosted by Tim Scott, featuring KC's finest actors and singers. You never know who will show up, and you never know what songs will be sung, but it's a guaranteed great time. Reservations required.

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

By 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.