Editor’s Weekend Calendar Picks, January 26 – 29

Here are weekend calendar picks for the last weekend of January, courtesy KC Studio editor Alice Thorson. Tonight, Unicorn Theatre premieres How to Use a Knife, which runs through February 19. KC Rep also premieres their production of Side by Side, celebrating the music and lyrics of Stephen Sondheim. And this is your last weekend to see My Old Lady, with performances tonight through Sunday. Saturday night, see a free concert at Park University, featuring peformances from ten ICM students. Saturday and Sunday, the Kauffman Center has STOMP. And ring in the Chinese New Year at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art all day Sunday. For more ideas this chilly January weekend, visit Kansas City’s most comprehensive arts calendar at kcstudio.org/events.

How To Use A Knife

January 26 @ 7:30 pm
January 27 @ 28 @ 8:00 pm
January 29 @ 3:00 pm
Unicorn Theatre

It isn’t easy running a busy restaurant kitchen in New York City, but it may be the last chance Chef George gets to turn his life around. Behind the scenes, the kitchen sizzles with two rowdy Guatemalan line cooks, an entitled young busboy, and an eerily quiet African dishwasher. When secrets from the past bubble to the surface, Chef George discovers he holds more than his own life in his hands.

My Old Lady

January 26-28 @ 7:30 pm
January 29 @ 2:00 pm
H & R Block-City Stage

by Israel Horovitz
Directed by Darren Sextro

Witty, wise, romantic, and oh-so-French. Kansas City Actors Theatre introduces an acclaimed but neglected playwright with this, his love letter to France. When a failed American novelist inherits a luxurious but crumbling Paris apartment, he’s sure his fortune has turned…until he learns that the apartment comes with a nonagenarian tenant and her spinster daughter. Not only is this a Kansas City premiere, but it is the first time an Israel Horovitz play has been professionally produced here in nearly 25 years.

Side by Side by Sondheim

January 27 – February 19
Spencer Theatre, Olson PAC, UMKC Campus

Nominated for both London’s Olivier Award and Broadway’s Tony Award for Best Musical, Side by Side by Sondheim celebrates the music and lyrics of Pulitzer, Tony, and Academy Award winning Stephen Sondheim. Side by Side by Sondheim ran in London and New York for well over a thousand performances, making it one of the most successful musical revues of all time. A glittering evening of music, comedy, and song, the show features beloved hits from Gypsy, West Side Story, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music and Pacific Overtures – some of the songs include “Comedy Tonight”, “Broadway Baby”, “Anyone Can Whistle”, “A Boy Like That” and the Grammy Award winning “Send in the Clowns” to name a few.

Park University International Center for Music Young Artist Showcase

January 28 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm | Free
Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel-Park University

This free concert will highlight 10 selected students enrolled in the ICM’s undergraduate and graduate programs, and will feature the following solo and chamber performances:

“Preludes, Op. 28” (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 15 and 16), composed by Frédéric Chopin, performed by pianist Simon Karakulidi, freshman applied music/piano major, Novossiysk, Russia
“Partita No. 1 in B Minor” (BWV 1002), composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by violinist Hanna Zhdan, junior applied music/strings major, Minsk, Belarus
“Images” (Series 1), composed by Claude Debussy, performed by pianist Mickaël Lipari-Mayer, graduate student pursuing graduate certificate in applied music/piano, Montreal
“Pavane pour une infant défunte” (“Pavane for a Dead Infanta”), arranged for viola, composed by Maurice Ravel, performed by violist Anna Sorokina, graduate student pursing Master of Music degree in performance, Moscow
“Hungarian Rhapsody, Op. 68,” composed by David Popper, performed by cellist Dilshod Narzillaev, freshman applied music/strings major, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Seven variations on “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen” (“To the men who feel the love), WoO 46, composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by Mansur Kadirov, graduate student pursuing graduate certificate in music performance and 2014 Bachelor of Music graduate, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
“Violin Sonata in D Major, No. 2” (Op. 94a), composed by Sergei Prokofiev, performed by pianist Evangeliya Delizonas, graduate student pursuing Master of Music degree in piano performance, Moscow, and violinist Igor Khukhua, graduate student pursuing Master of Music degree in violin performance, Moscow
“Adagio in G Major” (BWV 968), from “Violin Sonata No. 3” (BWV 1005), and “Toccata in C Minor” (BWV 911), composed by Bach, performed by pianist Kenneth Broberg, pursuing Master of Music degree in piano performance, Plymouth, Minn.
“Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35,” composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, performed by violinist Laurel Gagnon, senior applied music/strings major, Hooksett, N.H.

Pianist Lolita Lisovskaya-Sayevich, ICM director of collaborative piano, will accompany Sorokina, Narzillaev, Kadirov and Gagnon on their selections.

Stomp

January 28 @ 7:30 pm
January 29 @ 1:00 pm @ 6:30 pm
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

STOMP is explosive, provocative, sophisticated, sexy, utterly unique and appeals to audiences of all ages. The international percussion sensation has garnered an armful of awards and rave reviews, and has appeared on numerous national television shows. The eight-member troupe uses everything but conventional percussion instruments–matchboxes, wooden poles, brooms, garbage cans, Zippo lighters, hubcaps–to fill the stage with magnificent rhythms. As USA Today says, “STOMP finds beautiful noises in the strangest places.” STOMP. See what all the noise is about.