RSS 2.0 FeedMarch 24, 2010, City Stage
Theatre through March 31
Closing this week: Unicorn's "Green Whales;" and Musical Heritage Theatre's "Kiss Me Kate" "Avenue Q" for one night only at the Lied Center. On-going: KC Rep's "Bus Stop;" Quality Hill's "Broadway's Best;" AHT's "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change;" TYA's "Junie B. Jones and A Little Monkey Business."
For complete Theatre listings through 2010, click here to visit the KC Events calendar
Musical Theater Heritage
Kiss Me Kate
Cole Porter's Musical Masterpiece In Concert
Directed by Sarah Crawford
Runs through March 28 at Off Center Theatre, Crown Center
For tickets call 816-842-9999 or online at www.mthkc.com
Call or visit the website for performance days and times.
Kiss Me Kate was a comeback triumph for an aging Cole Porter and became the big smash hit Broadway show of 1948. This musical masterpiece won the first Tony Award ever presented for Best Musical, and the score sounds just as fresh and wonderful today as it did back then! Songs include: Why Can't You Behave, So In Love, Brush Up Your Shakespeare, I Hate Men, Wunderbar, Tom Dick or Harry, and Too Darn Hot, to name a few. This will be another huge cast for Musical Theater Heritage. Sarah Crawford is directing the show, and the orchestra will be led by Jeremy Watson on piano.
Unicorn Theatre
Green Whales
By Lia Romeo
Directed by Cynthia Levin
Runs through March 28 at the Unicorn Theatre
For tickets call 816-531-PLAY or online at www.unicorntheatre.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times.
In this World Premiere from talented up-and-coming playwright Lia Romeo, Karen looks like a teenager but is actually a brilliant, albeit dateless, 38-year-old philosophy professor. Her wacky sister, Joanna, concocts an ill-advised plan to find Karen's "perfect" match while navigating her own tenuous relationship. This bizarrely comic and twisted love story, hot from the Unicorn's In-Progress New Play Reading Series last season, reinforces the notion that there is indeed someone for everyone.
Read the KCMetropolis review here.
Quality Hill Playhouse
Broadway's Best
Runs March 6 through April 3 at Quality Hill Playhouse
For tickets call 816-421-1700 or online at www.qualityhillplayhouse.com
Call or visit the website for performance days and times.
All Broadway musicals strive for that most coveted recognition - the Tony Award®. Named in honor of Antoinette Perry (actress, producer, director), the Tony is awarded each season for "distinguished achievement" in the theatre. Although the first awards were given in 1947, the "Musical" category wasn't added until 1949. Since that time, American musical theatre's most respected composers, lyricists and producers have been honored for their outstanding work. Quality Hill looks back on more than 50 years of Tony Award® winning shows in this revue of songs from the best musicals of all time.
Read the KCMetropolis review here.
Kansas City Repertory Theatre
Bus Stop
By William Inge
Directed by Steve Cosson
Runs March 12 through April 3 at the Spencer Theatre
For tickets call 816-235-2700 or online at www.kcrep.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times.
The greatest playwright to come out of Kansas and undoubtedly one of the most important American writers of the 20th century, William Inge was known for his realistic, funny and moving works revolving around the cities of the Central Plains. Bus Stop, one of his greatest comedies, tells the story of the night a March blizzard traps eight strangers in a small cafe 30 miles west of Kansas City. A bus driver falls for the bus stop proprietress, a young local girl becomes fascinated by a professor running away from his failed life back east, and a chorus girl tries to escape a reckless cowboy determined to marry her. As the evening wears on, lives are changed, love is lost and found, and strangers find ways to keep each other warm on the coldest Kansas night.
Read the KCMetropolis review here.
Theatre for Young America
Junie B. Jones and A Little Monkey Business
By Barbara Park
Runs March 2 through April 16 at H&R Block Stage at Union Station
For tickets call 816-460-2020 or online at www.unionstation.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times.
Barbara Park's wildly popular Junie B. Jones character comes to life onstage in this musical adaptation of the book Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business. Junie finds out from her parents that she is getting a present. She is so excited until she finds out it is a "P. U." baby brother! At first jealous, when she hears that her new baby brother is "cute as a monkey", she gets the school kids to give her their snack treats and other gifts in exchange for a peek at the monkey! Songs and words are by Joan Cushing, the same playwright who adapted TYA's Miss Nelson series of musicals.
American Heartland Theatre
I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change
Book & Lyrics by Joe DiPietro
Music by Jimmy Roberts
Runs March 12 - April 25 at Crown Center
For tickets call 816-842-9999 or online at www.ahtkc.com
Call or visit the website for performance days and times.
I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change celebrates the universal theme of love and pokes fun at the life experiences we've all either gone through or will go through. I Love You explores every aspect of relationships- the joys of dating, romance, marriage, lovers, babies, husbands, wives...and in-laws. Always funny and fresh, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change is well suited for the new couple looking to see what life's going to be like or for the husband and wife that have been through it all and still say "I love, you're perfect, don't change." When the off-Broadway run of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change closed in the summer of 2008, it had played 5,003 performances and 20 previews, an astonishingly long run by any measure, but downright historic for an off-Broadway musical (and second only to the run of "The Fantasticks"). If its 12 year run isn't a testament to the enduring charm, wit and wonder of this musical, we don't know what is! Returning to the American Heartland Theatre 12 years after its Kansas City premiere, I Love You is back and better than ever.
ONE SHOW ONLY
Lied Center of Kansas
Avenue Q: PG-13 Broadway musical comedy
Wednesday, March 24 at 7:30 p.m.
Kansas University Campus, Lawrence, Kansas
For tickets call 785-864-278 or online at www.lied.ku.edu
Avenue Q is the Tony Award-winning musical about trying to make it in NYC with big dreams and a tiny bank account. Struggling to find jobs, significant others and their reason for living, the characters in Avenue Q collaborate and commiserate over life's stumbling blocks. Set on a fictitious New York City street, Avenue Q features a cast of people and puppets who serve up a bounty of laughs while telling the story in their smart and risqué way.
For complete Theatre listings through 2010, click here to visit the KC Events calendar.
To be included in this column, you must have your event listed on the KC Events Calendar. Click here for instructions on how to do that.
All material contained in KCMetropolis.org is the property of or licensed for use by KCMetropolis.org. Any use, duplication, or reproduction of any or all content of this publication is prohibited except with the express written permission of KCMetropolis.org or the original copyright holders.