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 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.”

Read the KCM review here.

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.

Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre
Rules for Widows
Runs September 8 through October 2 at MET Space
For tickets call 816-569-3226 or online at www.metkc.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

Following her husband's death, Iris uncovers secrets about the man she built her life and family with. As the family gathers, Iris is in an emotional standoff with her overbearing sister Liddie, deals with nagging questions of her thirty year old, unemployed son Chuck and her daughter Erika, who has returned for the funeral with her new irlfriend, Nif. Comedic and poignant by turns, more secrets are unearthed, this family repeatedly faces the question: "How much do you really want to know?" Featuring Jan Rogge, Marilyn Lynch, Coleman Crenshaw, Katie Ligon and Jennifer Coville. Directed by Karen Paisley.

American Heartland Theatre
Nobody Lonesome for Me
Runs September 9 through October 23
For tickets call  816-842-9999 or online at www.ahtkc.com
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

It's New Year's Eve 1952, and country music legend Hank Williams is stranded in a gas station. During this fateful night Hank shares his wit, his stories and his music. Hank Williams created one of the most enduring musical legacies with classics like "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", "Cold,Cold Heart", "Jambalaya", and "Your Cheatin' Heart." This revealing look at America's greatest troubadour celebrates his musical genius and exposes his darkest demons. Starring Matthew Brumlow, reprising his much-lauded role as Hank Williams.

The Coterie Theatre
The Outsiders
Runs September 13 through October 14
For tickets call 816-474-6552 or online at www.coterietheatre.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

 It's 1965 and Ponyboy Curtis belongs to a lower class group of Oklahoma youths who call themselves greasers. Walking home from a movie, Ponyboy is attacked by a group of Socs, short for Socials, and a rival ganga that threaten to cut him. So begins an impactful tale by S.E. Hinton, who wrote this landmark work as a teen in Tulsa.

Kansas City Repertory Theatre
August: Osage County
Spencer Theatre
Runs September 16 through October 9
For tickets call 816-235-2700 or online at www.kcrep.org
Call or visit the website for performance days and times

The Rep's Eric Rosen directs this 2008 Pulitzer and Tony Award winner, which The New York Times hailed as "the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years." A raucous, dark comedy that enjoyed celebrated runs on Broadway and London's West End, August: Osage County will have you sitting on the edge of your seat, enthralled by a dysfunctional family reunited by tragedy. Contains strong language and adult situations  

One Night Only
Musical Theater Heritage
Musical Monday
September 12, 7:30 p.m., 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 times

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.

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.