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.

New Theatre Restaurant
The Sunshine Boys
Runs September 1 through November 7 at New Theatre Restaurant
For tickets call 913 649 7469 or online at www.newtheatre.com
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

For over 40 years the comedy team of Lewis & Clark topped the bill at the biggest theatres on the vaudeville circuit. Now they aren't even speaking. When CBS requests them for a "History of Comedy" retrospective, a grudging reunion brings the two back together, along with a flood of memories, miseries and laugh after laugh after laugh.
Starring Howard Hesseman (Dr.Johnny Fever of WKRP in Cincinnati)

Click here to read the KCM review

The Theatre Gym
World Première of DUTY by Hal Parrott
Runs September 2- 19 at Fringe Central
For tickets call 816-235-6222 or online at www.theatregym.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times.

DUTY is the story of a Vietnam veteran and his wife and the challenge they face when their 22-year-old son announces he intends to join the Marines and go to the war in the Middle East.   In spite of their objections the son goes to war, and his father and another Vietnam veteran befriend a devout Muslim in their process of forming a group called “Former Marines for Peace in the East.”

DUTY asks questions that touch every one of us personally and almost on a daily basis—questions about war and about right and wrong, about love, marriage and parenthood, about enemies and friends, about tolerance and hate, and about our duty to our family, to our country, and to ourselves.  

This production, directed by Art Suskin, features renowned actor Allan L. Boardman as David Crenshaw and Kathy Kane as Ellie Crenshaw with a supporting cast of well-known Kansas City theatre professionals.

Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre
Hot L Baltimore
By Lanford Wilson
Directed by Karen Paisley
Runs September 9 through October 3 at the MET Space
For tickets call 816-569-3226 or online at www.metkc.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

The old Hotel Baltimore, once fashionable, is now home to prostitutes, petty thieves, drifters, and indigents. Their fragile community may soon spin out of orbit when the hotel is slated for demolition.  Part comedy, part struggle for survival, It is a dance by amazing characters who refuse to give up.



Kansas City Repertory Theatre
Saved
Second Production Directed by Gary Griffin
Music and Lyrics by Michael Friedman
Book and Lyrics by John Dempsey and Rinne Groff

Runs September 10 – October 3 at Spencer Theatre, UMKC
For tickets call 816-235-2700 or online at www.KCRep.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

A ground-breaking new musical based on the popular movie Saved! With a pop score and a young energetic cast, this musical follows an unforgettable senior year at a Christian high school. When a popular girl will do anything to save her boyfriend, she tests the limits of her school and her family’s faith in their beliefs and each other. Saved is a smart, funny, and moving new musical by some of the most important artists in the American theatre - and if you like the TV show "Glee" you’ll love Saved!

Recommended for high school and up.



American Heartland Theatre
The Love List
Runs September 10 through October 24 at American Heartland Theatre, Crown Center
For tickets call 816-842-9999 or online at www.ahtkc.com
Call or visit the website for performance days and times.

What do you get a friend for a 50th birthday present? If he's still single, you buy him a "love list" from the local gypsy.  You help him put pen to paper to come up with a list of ten qualities that define the perfect woman and, "Weird Science-style," she appears!  But, just as the gorgeous dream woman appears, the scheme starts to go horribly, mysteriously and hysterically awry! It's as if Neil Simon combined The Odd Couple and The Bride of Frankenstein in this insightful and outrageously funny comedy.



Lawrence Arts Center
New Play Festival
Lawrence Arts Center
940 New Hampshire Street, Lawrence, KS
For tickets call 785-843-2787 or online at http://lawrenceartscenter.org/adult-theatre.html
Call or visit the website for performance times

September 16 & 17: American Bear and The Paludan Sisters: It's All Relative
September 18: American Bear and Prop 8 on Trial
The Lawrence Arts Center is presents its first-ever New Play Festival September 16-18.  These exciting new shows range from a musical memoir to a Midwestern drama to a multimedia experience ripped straight from the headlines and are sure to appeal to a wide range of audiences.

Chestnut Fine Arts Theatre
Little Shop Of Horrors
Directed by Brad Zimmerman and Bob Nichols
Runs September 16 through October 17 at the Chestnut Fine Arts Center
For tickets call 913-764-2121 or online at www.chestnutfinearts.com/index.htm
Call or visit the website for performance dates and times.

Little Shop of Horrors, a funny musical spoof, is one of the longest running off-Broadway shows ever. Seymour, a quirky florist, falls in love, gains fame, and becomes the toast of the town. The high-energy show features rock ‘n’ roll and doo-wop numbers including: Somewhere That’s Green; Skid Row; and Suddenly, Seymour.  This performance is rated “PG”.

Starring Emily Burns, Stasha Case, Krista Eyler, Peggy Mall, Joel Morrison and David Thompson.



The Barn Players
Assassins
Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
Directed by Damron Russell Armstrong

Runs September 17 - October 3
For tickets call 913-432-9100 or online at www.thebarnplayers.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Assassins is the story of nine individuals who assassinated or tried to assassinate Presidents of the United States and is part vaudeville extravaganza, wholly electrifying, entertaining, alarmingly funny and scary all at the same time; a bold, surreal, thought provoking, drama with a memorable musical score by famed composer Stephen Sondheim including:  “Everybody’s Got the Right”, “Unworthy Of Your Love” and “Something Just Broke”.

Quality Hill Playhouse
Come Fly With Me: The Lyrics of Sammy Cahn
Runs September 17 through October 17 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

Sammy Cahn was nominated for more “Best Song” Academy Awards than anyone else – 26 total – and won four. In addition to his film work, he wrote for numerous popular singers of the 1940s and 50s, penning No. 1 hits for Doris Day, the Andrews Sisters, Frank Sinatra and more. He wrote so often for Mr. Sinatra, in fact, that Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote that Cahn and composer Jimmy Van Heusen “were almost considered to be (Sinatra’s) personal songwriters.”

Come Fly With Me, featuring Julie O’Rourke, Julie Shaw and James Wright, with J. Kent Barnhart at the piano, Ken Remmert on drums and Brian Wilson on bass, is a tribute to this talented lyricist. You’ll hear hits from four decades, including “Until the Real Thing Comes Along” (1936), “I Should Care” (1944), “We Never Talk Much” (1953) and “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” (1961), among others. And no Sammy Cahn retrospective would be complete without the songs that won his four Oscars – “Call Me Irresponsible,” “All the Way,” “Three Coins in the Fountain” and “High Hopes.”



Unicorn Theatre
[Name of the Play]
Music and Lyrics by Jeff Bowen
Book by Hunter Bell
Directed by Missy Koonce
Musical Direction by Anthony T. Edwards

Runs September 18 through October 10 at the Unicorn Theatre
For tickets call 816-531-PLAY or online at www.unicorntheatre.org
Call or visit the website for performance dates and times.

 [INSERT MUSIC HERE]
Imagine two hyper-talented young songwriters in New York trying to write a new musical about two hyper-talented young songwriters in New York trying to write a new musical. That’s [title of show], the deliciously smart, tongue-in-cheek musical that wowed Broadway audiences and critics last fall. Share its dizzy, unpredictable and uproarious journey from unemployment to the Great White Way.

Featuring Seth Golay, KC Comeaux, Jessalyn Kincaid and Natalie Weaver.



The Coterie Theatre
Science Fiction Triple Feature
Runs September 21 through October 17 at the Coterie Theatre, Crown Center
For tickets call 816-474-6552 or online at www.coterietheatre.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Three masterpieces on stage based on a concept by Jeff Church: The Veldt (by Ray Bradbury): A virtual reality playroom comes alive. Flowers for Algernon (by Daniel Keyes): To enhance IQ, a surgical improvement turns intellectual disability into genius. By the Waters of Babylon (by Stephen Vincent Benét): A young priest's mission is to explore the forbidden Place of the Gods. Preteen / Young Adult Series

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