Time for weekend calendar picks from KC Studio editor Alice Thorson! This is your last weekend to see KC Meltingpot Theatre‘s production of Single Black Female. Unicorn Theatre’s production of Informed Consent opens this weekend and continues to April 1st. Tonight, Kansas City Symphony plays a repertoire of silver-screen blockbusters, including works from 2001 and more. Friday night, Hot Sardines play hot jazz at The Folly. Saturday, an exhibition covering Truman’s service in the Great War opens at the Truman Library and The Friends of Chamber Music present pianist Fabio Bidini. Sunday night, enjoy classical guitar with the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, presented by the Carlsen Center at Johnson County Community College. For more events this weekend, visit Kansas City’s most comprehensive arts calendar at kcstudio.org/events.
Single Black Female
February 23, 2018 – March 10, 2018 | $20 – $25
Just Off Broadway Theatre
Written by Lisa B. Thompson
Directed by Teresa Leggard
Informed Consent
March 7, 2018 – April 1, 2018
Unicorn Theatre
A genetic anthropologist, Jillian, is driven to map out futures and reveal histories through DNA, desperately fighting to save her own young daughter from developing early-onset Alzheimer’s. When the opportunity arises to research the genes of an isolated Native American tribe that could hold the key, Jillian sets out on a mission to make a break-through discovery. Inspired by the conflict between a Native tribe and an Arizona university, Informed Consent takes on the personal and national debate about science vs. belief, and whether our DNA should write our life stories.
CLASSICS UNCORKED: AT THE MOVIES
March 8, 2018 @ 7:00 pm
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
Epic movies need epic music. We’re rolling out the red carpet to celebrate great orchestral repertoire from silver-screen blockbusters such as “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Apocalypse Now,” “Black Swan,” “Amadeus,” “The Shining,” “Moulin Rouge,” “Fantasia 2000” and more. After the concert, enjoy a complimentary glass of wine or champagne and mingle with Kansas City Symphony musicians in Kauffman Center’s Brandmeyer Great Hall lobby. Sponsored by BMO Wealth Management. Most tickets $25.
THE HOT SARDINES
March 9, 2018 @ 8:00 pm
Folly Theater
Take a blustery brass lineup, layer it over a rhythm section led by a stride-piano virtuoso in the Fats Waller vein, and tie the whole thing together with a one-of-the-boys frontwoman with a voice from another era, and you have the Hot Sardines (and let’s not forget about the tap dancer)! The Sardine sound is steeped in hot jazz, salty stride piano and the kind of music Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, and Waller used to make: straight-up, foot-stomping jazz.
In the last two years, the Hot Sardines have been featured at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival, have sold out NYC venues from Joe’s Pub to Bowery Ballroom and more than 150 tour dates from Chicago to London, and have released two albums on Universal Music Classics to critical raves and a No. 1 slot on the iTunes Jazz chart in the U.S. and internationally. The Hot Sardines have also performed at the Folly Theater once before and at the KC Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2017!
‘Heroes or Corpses’: Captain Truman in World War I
March 10, 2018 – December 31, 2018
Harry S. Truman Library & Museum
“There we were watching New York’s skyline diminish, and wondering if we’d be heroes or corpses,” Harry S. Truman later recalled as he departed New York for the battlefields of France in the spring of 1918. Truman returned a hero, and his service helped set him on the path to the presidency.
“‘Heroes or Corpses’: Captain Truman in World War I” tells the captivating story of Truman’s service in the Great War through never-before-exhibited photographs, personal letters and more than 40 artifacts from Truman’s personal World War I collection. View the loving cup that members of Battery D purchased for Captain Truman with money they pooled together following the war. See Truman’s tack box that was painted over with the new title “Captain Harry S. Truman” when he was promoted from lieutenant to captain. Read some of the more than 100 letters that Captain Truman sent to his fiancée Bess while stationed overseas.
World War I helped transform Harry Truman into the man who would one day become one of the most respected presidents in our nation’s history, and this year only, visitors can view this fascinating story in depth at the Truman Library.
Upon entry in the National Guard, Truman was put in command of Battery D of the 129th Field Artillery, 35th Division, an unruly bunch that grew to respect him as he proved his leadership skills. Throughout their service together, Captain Truman managed not to lose a single man, even though Battery D braved the largest action in American military history at that point — the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Commemorate the centennial of America’s involvement and Truman’s service in World War I, and view this story of leadership and triumph on display this year only at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.
FABIO BIDINI, PIANO
March 10, 2018 @ 7:30 pm
Folly Theater
Pianist Fabio Bidini is known for his immaculate musical taste, electrifying performances, and dazzling dexterity. Mr. Bidini, winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and many other awards, brings Italian bravissimo to all of his performances. An inspired program that includes the fiery “Waldstein” Sonata and a chance for the artist to bring out his immense story-telling gifts, when he brings all of Schumann’s characters from the Carnival alive on stage.
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet
March 11, 2018 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm | $25 – $40
Carlsen Center – Yardley Hall
The GRAMMY® Award-winning LAGQ’s four uniquely accomplished musicians bring a new energy to the concert stage with programs ranging from bluegrass to Bach. The quartet consistently plays to sold-out houses worldwide. The inventive, critically acclaimed transcriptions of concert masterworks provide a fresh look at the music of the past, while interpretations of works from the contemporary and world-music realms continually break new ground.
This performance will feature a work written especially for LAGQ by world-renowned jazz guitarist (and local boy from Lee’s Summit who made good) Pat Metheny, plus other classical guitar favorites.
