KCMETROPOLIS.org
Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

Beginning with "Sizzling Summer of Siblings," two back-to-back productions exploring special bonds, first between brothers, then among sisters-in two very different works. In July we open with one of America's most prolific playwrights, Sam Shepard and his True West. Over twenty years ago, KCAT favorites Jim Birdsall and Mark Robbins brought True West's Lee and Austin to life on the Missouri Repertory Theatre stage. They'll reprise their roles in this classic play about two estranged brothers and their testosterone-driven rivalry in what David Krasner, author of A Companion to 20th-Century American Drama cites as "Shepard's signature piece, the leanest, most pointed of his full length works." The San Francisco Chronicle calls it "...clear, funny, naturalistic. It's also opaque, terrifying, surrealistic. If that sounds contradictory, you're on to one aspect of Shepard's winning genius; the ability to make you think you're watching one thing while at the same time he's presenting another."  True West will be directed by Robert Elliott.

"We have two wonderful plays chosen with our characteristic attention to thematic links, this time in their shared explorations into the struggles-often very passionate-among siblings," says Artistic Committee Chair, Mark Robbins. That exploration continues with the Kansas City premiere of Marion Bridge by Canada's preeminent playwright, Daniel MacIvor. When three troubled sisters reunite to care for their dying mother, they learn more about each other and themselves and come to terms with the past. Ed Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle says "...ultimately hopeful, it's a domestic tragedy that cuts clearly to the bone, finding emotional nuance among the family's knotty secrets and dense layers of subterfuge." 

Building on last season's success, KCAT is expanding its season to include four shows and as Robbins notes, "...we couldn't do it without the help of our terrific partners in these special collaborations that are sure to be memorable." In the fall, we'll visit Dublin in Conor McPherson's The Seafarer with our friends at the Unicorn Theatre. It's Christmas Eve and four old friends gather for a game of cards; but with the arrival of a stranger from the past, the stakes for some are much higher than you think. Ben Brantley of the New York Times calls The Seafarer "a thinking-person's alternative to It's a Wonderful Life on a flagon of Christmas cheer." "This dark and enthralling Christmas fable of despair and redemption descends at some point to oceanic depths of drunkenness...it tingles with the author's acute and authentic sense of what is knowable and unknowable in life." Brantley calls McPherson "the finest playwright of his generation." Mark Robbins directs the show on the Jerome Stage at the Unicorn Theatre. 

In a unique collaboration with the National WWI Museum and the UMKC Theatre Department, KCAT closes the season in February with one of the 20th century's theatrical masterpieces, Oh What a Lovely War! This carnival of song, battle and heartbreak by London's famed Theatre Workshop portrays the war to end all wars and blazes its way on to the stage at America's national museum dedicated to that war. The show features a large ensemble cast including John Rensenhouse and Gary Holcombe directed by Barry Kyle, acclaimed director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Globe Theatre in England. 

KCAT's summer productions are at Union Station's H&R Block City Stage and run from July 23 through September 12. The Seafarer can be seen on the Unicorn Theatre's Jerome Stage from October 20 through November 7 and Oh What a Lovely War! runs from February 11 - 27, 2011 at the National WWI Museum's stage in Nichols Auditorium.

Season subscriptions now on sale at www.kcactors.org or by calling the Central Ticket Office at 816-235-6222.

The Actors Theatre is Kansas City's only artist-led, artist-driven theatre company, producing classic and modern-classic plays featuring Kansas City theatre artists.