Brian McTavish

Brian McTavish

Brian McTavish is a freelance writer specializing in the arts and pop culture. He was an arts and entertainment writer for more than 20 years at The Kansas City Star. He regularly shares his “Weekend To-Do List” at KCUR-FM (89.3)/kcur.org.

Arts News: Anatomy of a Paleo Artist

Arts News: Anatomy of a Paleo Artist

In his new art book, “Lost Anatomies: The Evolution of the Human Form,” esteemed paleo artist and Kansas City area native John Gurche presents a captivating cache of 189 images steeped in both science and imagination. “I’ve been working on this collection for 27 years,” Gurche said. “It started out of frustration with what I […]

“I Want It to Be Magic.”

“I Want It to Be Magic.”

For Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s “A Christmas Carol,” the Noel is greater than the sum of its parts. The perennial holiday show’s crowd-pleasing components include its huge cast of 20 adults and 10 youths sporting mid-19th-century fashions and ear-tickling British vernaculars, captivating singing and dancing underscored by live period music, a computerized rotating set and a series of unforgettable ghosts who deal in dynamic tough love after making supernatural entrances to die for.

No Flyover Town: Kansas City Joins Google Arts & Culture

No Flyover Town: Kansas City Joins Google Arts & Culture

Since 2011, the mission of Google Arts & Culture has been to make the world’s cultural information accessible online. And, this spring, Kansas City became the first city in North America to get its own dedicated page on the far-reaching website and app. Suddenly, the Heart of America has a significantly higher profile in the digital ether.

The Job: Paul Churchill

The Job: Paul Churchill

Art preparator Paul Churchill doesn’t have the easiest job to explain in a jiffy.“ People ask, ‘What do you do?’” Churchill says. “I tell them, ‘Basically, I’m a preparator,’ and they say, ‘What is that?’ I go, ‘Well, it’s actually somebody who installs, packs, stores and ships artwork in a museum setting.

Arts News: Not Your Average Art Course

Appreciating art and accurately putting a golf ball may seem like disparate objectives. Yet “each requires a certain level of discipline and commitment and creativity,” says Casey Claps, manager of strategic initiatives at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. And each will come into symbiotic play at Art Course, the new mini-golf experience open May 24 […]