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

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

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.

Read the KCM review here.

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."

Read the KCM Review here

American Heartland Theatre
The 39 Steps
Runs May 6 through June 19
For tickets call 816-842-9999 or online at www.ahtkc.com
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Enjoy A Hitchcock Thriller - but don't worry, it's not scary! This is not your typical Hitchock of Psycho or The Birds (although you may find homages to his classics), rahter a zany ride of pure theatre.  Four versatile actors take on the classic spy-thriller, The 39 Steps, the challenge: they need to bring 150 characters to life - with only the four of them and the props on hand. Three men and one woman tell the whole story of The 39 Steps at a break-neck speed, with minimal sets and costumes.  But don't let that fool you; this is a complex and thrilling story with just the right amount of romance!  Achieved through fearless engagement with the audience, and a fell embracing of theatricality, The 39 Steps is a delightful production that never takes itself too seriously. 

The Coterie Theatre
Young Playwrights’ Festival 2011
Runs May 11 through May 12
For tickets call 816-474-6552 or online at www.coterietheatre.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

The Coterie's Young Playwrights' Festival features a collection of new work by the city's best young writers.  The rich and varied theatrical writings which emerge from a year long process are forged into an ambitious festival of script-in-hand stagings- utilizing the finest actors, directors, and designers to make this a special experience about quality writing by young people.

Musical Theater Heritage
Gypsy
Runs May 12 through May 29, at Off Center Theatre, Crown Center
For tickets, call 816-842-9999 or online at www.mthkc.org 

Call or visit the website for performance days and timesDeb Bluford stars in this production of Gypsy, the classic that first opened on Broadway in 1959. Its vibrant score epitomizes the sound of the American Musical and the golden age of Broadway with such songs as “Everything's Coming Up Roses,” “Let Me Entertain You,” and “Rose’s Turn.”

The Mystery Train
Our Brother’s Caper
Runs every Friday and Saturday
For tickets call 816-813-9654 or online at www.kcmysterytrain.com
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

"Our Brother's Caper"  - A band of orphans on their way to new homes in Missouri accidentally uncover a murder!  This won't look good to their future parents?  Can they expose the killer before the train pulls in? Interactive murder-mystery comedy, with a four-course dinner. Friday and Saturday evenings at Finnigan's Hall. Reservations needed. Seating and role-playing begin at 6:30 pm.

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.