Robert Trussell, Author at KC STUDIO

Robert Trussell

Robert Trussell is a veteran journalist who has covered news, arts and theater in Kansas City for almost four decades.

Light and Darkness: ‘An Outgoing Tide’ captures the good and bad of family relationships

There’s a new theater company in town and its artistic leadership is apparently unafraid to open a play in the midst of a pandemic. Venture Out Theatre’s inaugural production, an affecting three-character drama called “The Outgoing Tide,” was staged for a limited, socially distanced audience at Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre. A video version shot by Matt […]

October 23, 2020
0

Theater on Video: MTH Strikes Again With Songs of Rivers and Oceans

The brain trust at MTH Theater has found a way to reach an audience, even in the depths of a pandemic. Following up the company’s classy video production of “An Evening of Rodgers and Hammerstein,” performed and filmed on the MTH stage without an audience, artistic director Tim Scott, music director Anthony T. Edwards and […]

October 20, 2020
0

KCAT Pivots to Radio Drama

And so the artists at Kansas City Actors Theatre wrestled with the question all theater professionals have confronted this year: What are we gonna do? The COVID-19 pandemic basically shut down theater everywhere — Kansas City, Chicago, New York and all points in between. Actors Equity Association, the union for actors and stage managers, enacted strict guidelines that largely prevented conventional rehearsals.

October 1, 2020
0

At Unicorn, A Show Will Go On

Cynthia Levin, the longtime artistic director of the Unicorn Theatre, couldn’t stand the idea of a dark theater building with no audiences, no working actors, no opening nights. But that became the summer reality for the Unicorn and other Equity theater companies.

September 21, 2020
0

Kansas City Actors Theatre Redefined

Kansas City Actors Theatre in its 15-year history has performed the works of famous and obscure playwrights alike — from the Americas, Europe (including Britain) and South Africa. But missing from the respected theater company’s record of productions is a single play by a writer of color.

September 17, 2020
0

Brave New World: Live (sort of) Theater on a Screen Near You

Virtual theater is here. Yes, it’s all because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which shows few signs of receding anytime soon. Theater companies, obligated to protect the health of performers, crew and spectators, simply cannot stage live plays or musicals. So the next logical step is theater one step removed. On the plus side, theater lovers […]

September 8, 2020
1