Kansas City Repertory Theatre is set to unveil a season that promises new musicals, classic dramas and original work, but first a few words about departing artistic director Eric Rosen.
When Rosen assumed the leadership of the Rep 10 years ago, the board assigned him a general objective: Raise the Rep’s national profile.
That he did, through a combination of hard work, inspiration and an ambitious vision. He attracted some of the best directors and designers in the business. He produced a lot of original work, some of which was great, and he took a lot of chances. Sometimes the risks paid off. Sometimes they didn’t. But through it all he maintained a steady focus on diversity in both the shows and the people he hired.
Among his achievements was the original dystopian hip-hop musical he co-wrote with Matt Sax, “Venice.” Following its world premiere at the Rep, the show was restaged at the prestigious Public Theater in New York. He also directed the world premiere of “A Christmas Story,” based on the classic film; that show eventually made it to Broadway.
Some fine directors worked at the Rep under Rosen, including David Cromer, who staged a stunning version of Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” at Copaken Stage. Cromer later returned to restage his innovative interpretation of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” And Moises Kauffman staged a spectacular production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.”
And now for my personal perspective: Rosen directed some of the best theater I’ve ever seen, either in Kansas City or New York. That includes Matt Sax’s one-man musical “Clay,” both the Kansas City and New York versions of “Venice,” a brilliant production of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” and a staging of Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage County” with an all-local cast that was easily the equal of the version I saw on Broadway.
The Rep season opens with “The Last Days of Summer,” a world-premiere musical based on a novel by Steve Kluger, who wrote the book and lyrics for the show, with music by Jason Howland. Jeff Calhoun will direct and choreograph. The show runs Sept. 7 – 30.
Next is “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, directed by Jason Chanos, the Rep’s interim artistic director. Steinbeck’s tragic classic about two farm laborers drifting from job to job in California seems as timely now as it ever did. It runs Oct. 19 – Nov. 11.
Rosen returns to stage “Indecent” by Paula Vogel. Vogel’s play is based on the controversy surrounding the Broadway premiere in 1923 of “God of Vengeance,” judged obscene by some but also considered a major work in Jewish culture. The show, a co-production with Baltimore Stage and Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., runs Jan. 18 – Feb. 10, 2019.
Associate artistic director Chip Miller directs “School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play” by Jocelyn Bioh. This play, said to be both comic and poignant, is set in a boarding school in Ghana in which the expectations of young African women collide with Western standards of beauty. Performance dates are Feb. 22 – March 17, 2019.
Rounding out the regular season is “Pride and Prejudice” by Kate Hamil, based on Jane Austen’s novel. Associate artistic director Marissa Wolf will direct. It runs March 22 – April 14, 2019.
The annual Origin KC: New Works Festival this season will feature Vanessa Severo’s “Frida . . . A Self Portrait” and Dipika Guha’s “Unreliable.” The shows run in repertory April 19 – May 19, 2019. In addition, the Rep will reprise Rosen’s adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” with Marissa Wolf directing. The annual classic runs Nov. 16 – Dec. 30.
For tickets and more information, call 816-235-2700 or go to www.kcrep.org.
The Lyric Opera normally doesn’t show up in my annual preview of the upcoming theater season, but this year is an exception. Why? The city’s venerable opera company kicks off its 2018-19 season with “West Side Story,” the 1957 classic teen-gang musical (really a retelling of “Romeo and Juliet”) with a score by Leonard Bernstein, a book by Arthur Laurents and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
And if any Broadway musical belongs in an opera house, this is the one. Bernstein wrote one of the most sophisticated scores ever heard on the Broadway stage. His mesmerizing mix of Latin and jazz influences, not to mention ever-changing rhythms and soaring melodies that are impossible to forget, makes this one of the great scores.
The production will be staged by veteran opera director Francesca Zambello, who has staged the show for a number of other opera companies. It runs Sept. 22 – 30 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
The Lyric season also includes “Madama Butterfly,” Nov. 3 – 11; “Così fan tutte,” March 16 – 24, 2019, and “The Pearl Fishers,” April 27 – May 5. For more information and tickets, 816-471-7344 or www.kcopera.org.
Speaking of musicals, anchoring the 2018-19 Kansas City Broadway Series (featuring shows presented by both Theater League and Broadway Across America) will be the smash hit “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s multi-ethnic take on Ron Chernow’s prize-winning biography of founding father Alexander Hamilton. The show runs June 18 – July 7, 2019 at the Music Hall.
The rest of the season includes “School of Rock,” Nov. 13 – 18 at the Music Hall; “The Book of Mormon,” Dec. 26 – 30 at the Music Hall; “The Sound of Music,” Jan. 15 – 20, 2019 at the Kauffman Center; “Evita,” Feb. 5 – 10 at the Kauffman Center; “Anastasia,” March 12 – 17 at the Music Hall; “The Play That Goes Wrong,” April 2 – 7, 2019 at the Kauffman Center; and “Rent,” April 30 – May 5, 2019 at the Music Hall.
Kansas City Actors Theatre opened its season with Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” in August. It continues with Eugene O’Neill’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten,” which runs Sept. 12 – 30 with Brian Paulette reprising the role of James Tyrone Jr.
Next on the KCAT season is world-premiere co-production with UMKC Theatre of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” in a new adaptation by screenwriter and playwright Mitch Brian, Oct. 12 – 21. The company concludes its season with Ariel Dorman’s political thriller “Death and the Maiden,” Jan. 9 – 27, 2019.
All shows will be at the City Stage at Union Station except “Dracula,” which will be performed at the Spencer Theatre at UMKC. For more information and tickets, 816-235-6222 or www.kcactors.org.
The Unicorn Theatre has assembled a season of local, regional and national premieres, beginning with British playwright Lucy Prebble’s “The Effect,” a four-character piece set in a clinic where volunteers are studied in trials for antidepressants. The show was well-received in London and runs Sept. 5 – 30.
Next up is “Sweat,” by Lynn Nottage, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A group of factory workers who gather regularly at a bar in Pennsylvania see relationships shattered by the instinct for survival after layoffs begin. It runs Oct. 17 – Nov. 11.
“The Wolves,” by Sarah DeLappe, a co-production with UMKC Theatre, is a 90-minute immersion in the inner life of a suburban girls’ soccer team. The 2017 Pulitzer Prize finalist runs Nov. 28 – Dec. 30.
“Nomad Motel,” by Carla Ching, is presented as a “rolling world premiere” via the National New Play Network. Described by the Unicorn as a “coming-of-age tale about motel kids and parachute kids making something out of nothing in the land of plenty,” the show runs Jan. 23 – Feb. 17, 2019.
“The Humans,” by Stephen Karam, winner of the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play, runs March 6 – 31, 2019. Tensions boil over and secrets are revealed at a family Thanksgiving dinner in lower Manhattan.
“Bond,” written and performed by Logan Black, is a full-length version of a show audiences saw as a one-act a few years ago at KC Fringe. Black recounts his combat experiences in Iraq as he and Diego, a smart yellow lab, identified buried bombs. The play also recounts Black’s efforts to reunite with Diego after they each returned from service. In this production Diego will be represented by a life-size puppet designed by the Mesner Puppet Theater. The show runs April 24 – May 19, 2019.
The Unicorn expects to announce an additional show. For more information and tickets, 816-531-7529 or www.unicorntheatre.org.
The Spinning Tree Theatre kicked off its 2018-19 season in August with “Daddy Long Legs,” a musical by Paul Gordon and John Card, which runs through Sept. 2.
The season continues with “The Nance,” Douglas Carter Beane’s dramedy that explores gender roles and homophobia in 1937 when Mayor LaGuardia wants to clean up — or shut down — New York’s objectionable burlesque venues in advance of the World’s Fair. The show runs Nov. 2 – 18.
Eve Ensler’s “Emotional Creature” carries the season into the new year. The show is an adaptation of Ensler’s best-selling book, “I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World,” and consists of monologues, vignettes and music. It runs Jan. 17 – Feb. 3.
“Billy Elliot,” the hit Broadway musical by Elton John and Lee Hall, based on the movie of the same title, closes the season. The show runs April 4 – 20.
All performances are at the Just Off Broadway Theatre. For more information and tickets, 816-235-6222 or www.spinningtreetheatre.com.
The Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, now ensconced in its new home at the Warwick Theatre, 3927 Main St., kicks off its season in September with the Neil Simon chestnut “The Odd Couple.”
After that the season gets more interesting. Horton Foote’s three-part, nine-play “Orphan’s Home Cycle,” a family saga set in the first three decades of the 20th century in South Texas, will run in October and November. Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of “The Cherry Orchard” will be in January, 2019, followed by August Wilson’s “Seven Guitars” in February and March. The summer musical will be the Larry Gilbert/Cy Coleman/David Zippel noirish musical comedy set in Hollywood, “City of Angels.”
In addition, the MET’s “Ghostlight Series” will include “It’s a Wonderful Life” in December and “The Shawshank Redemption” in April 2019.
All dates are subject to change. For more information and tickets, 816-569-3226 or www.metkc.org.
KC Melting Pot Theatre, which performs at the Just Off Broadway Theatre in Penn Valley Park, opens its season with August Wilson’s “Radio Golf,” the final work in Wilson’s 10-play cycle about African-American life in the 20th century. Melting Pot co-founder Harvey Williams directs. The show runs Sept. 21 – Oct. 6.
Next is a reprise of an original holiday-themed play by Williams, “On Shoulders Now,” Nov. 30 – Dec. 15. Associate artistic director Nicole Hodges Persley directs.
The 2019 Melting Pot schedule includes “The Green Book Wine Club Train Trip” by Kansas City playwright Michelle Tyrene Johnson, Feb. 15 – March 2, and Adrienne Kennedy’s “Funnyhouse of a Negro,” May 3 – 18. For more information and tickets, 816-226-8087 or www.kcmeltingpot.com.
The Coterie, the young-audiences theater based at Crown Center, inaugurates its season with “Becoming Martin,” a world-premiere play by screenwriter and filmmaker Kevin Willmott, who has collaborated twice with Spike Lee. The play depicts the influences on Martin Luther King Jr. after he enters Morehouse College at the age of 15. The show runs Sept. 18 – Oct. 21.
The Coterie season also includes “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” Nov. 6 – Dec. 30; “Secret Soldiers: Heroines in Disguise” by Wendy Lement, a co-production with UMKC Theatre about women who fought in the Civil War disguised as men, Jan. 22 – Feb. 10, 2019; “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” a musical by Robert Kauzlaric and George Howe based on the book by Richard and Florence Atwater, Feb. 26 – March 31, 2019; “Beat Bugs: A Musical Adventure,” inspired by the music of the Beatles, April 16 – May 19, 2019; and “We Are In a Play,” a musical by Mo Willems and Deborah Wicks La Puma, June 11 – Aug. 4, 2019.
The New Theatre in Overland Park has a line-up of time-tested crowd-pleasers on tap for the 2018-19 season, including “Always . . . Patsy Cline,” Sept. 26 – Dec. 2; “Shear Madness” with guest star Richard Karn, Dec. 5 – Feb. 17, 2019; Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” with guest star Peter Scolari, Feb. 20 – April 21, 2019; “The Buddy Holly Story,” April 25 – July 7, 2019; and the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” July 11 – Sept. 15, 2019. For more information and tickets, 913-649-7469 or www.newtheatre.com.
The White Theatre at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City will present a series of plays
and musicals, including “Camelot,” Nov. 3 – 18; “Cabaret,” Feb. 2 – 17, 2019; “Inherit the Wind,” March 16 – 24, 2019, and “Peter Pan,” July 6 – 28, 2019. For more information and tickets, 913-327-8000 or www.thejkc.org.
The Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City had not finalized its schedule at press time but plans to open the season with “Sarafina” at the Gem Theater, 1615 E. 18th St. in the historic jazz district. Other shows under consideration include “Honky,” “Othello Remix,” “The Red and Brown Water,” “Looking Over the President’s Shoulder” and “Dessa Rose.” For more information and tickets, 816-663-9966 or www.brtkc.org.
The Living Room at 1818 McGee St. had not announced a season at press time, but artistic director Rusty Sneary said the company will continue its emphasis on original work by Kansas City writers, including Ron Simonian and Victor Wishna. Sneary said to also expect a reprise of the satirical holiday show “Milking Christmas.” For more information and tickets, 816-533-5857 or www.thelivingroomkc.com.
