Category: Performing
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An American Classic Slated for Two KC Productions This Fall
Ntozake Shange, a playwright, poet and novelist who died last October, was only the second African-American woman to see her work produced on Broadway. That 1976 theater piece — which Shange described as a “choreopoem” — was “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf.”
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Family Bliss
Opening the Lyric Opera’s 2019-2020 season is Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio. This risqué rom-com is an exciting start to the season, with a production set in the glamour of 1940s Hollywood. What makes it even more exciting is that Prairie Village native Ben Bliss will grace his home stage for the very first time, alongside his mother, Judy Bliss, a longtime member of the Lyric Opera Chorus.
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Arts News: Charlotte Street Announces Capsule Performance Space Events
Charlotte Street Foundation never rests. The organization has begun construction on its new headquarters at 3333 Wyoming St. in the Roanoke neighborhood and announced the 32 artists for its 2019-20 Studio Residency Program in the Town Pavilion building downtown.
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Honors: David Wayne Reed
David Wayne Reed might best be described as a genre-busting conceptual artist whose work defies easy classification. Playwright, actor, filmmaker, storyteller — he wears these hats and others. But in the beginning, he was a man of the stage — a founding member of Late Night Theatre who performed, directed and contributed scripts to the gender-bending, genre-hybridizing theater company.
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Fall Season Lookahead: Jazz
Jazz recordings have their merits, but the music is arguably best appreciated in live performance. And atmosphere — influenced by the size and nature of the venue — plays a significant role in that experience. There’s no shortage of places to hear jazz in the Kansas City area, but the following venues are particularly worth seeking out.