The Kansas City Ballet, one of the diamonds in Kansas City’s crown, turns 60 this year. Last season, the Kansas City Ballet reached more than 90,000 people through outreach, dance education and training, and performances combined. Last June, the company hosted the annual national DanceUSA Conference, which gathered over 500 industry professionals from across the country to Kansas City.

By any conventional measure, the theater company run by a committee system should have years ago blown up in a supernova of egos. But it didn’t. And the quality of KCAT’s work is better than ever. As someone who has been reviewing plays in Kansas City for more than two decades, I can say that KCAT has mounted some of the best shows I’ve seen, going all the way back to its very first production in 2005.