Host Michael Mackie sits down with Sidonie Garrett, Executive Artistic Director of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. Their discussion centers around the upcoming 2026 production of Macbeth. Garrett discusses tips for the ultimate “theatrical tailgating” experience and why Southmoreland Park is the ideal place for residents and visitors to the upcoming World Cup to experience classic Shakespeare in an inviting setting for free. They also discuss continuing educational partnerships with local organizations such as The Black Repertory Theater of Kansas City and plans for their big 35th anniversary in 2027. Garrett hopes that the recently opened KC Streetcar extension will allow more visitors and residents to experience future Heart of America Shakespeare Festivals.
Michael Mackie:
Hi everyone, it’s Michael Mackie here, coming to you from KC Studio. KC Studio and kcstudio.org is the only regional magazine and website entirely devoted to covering all arts all the time. I’m excited to work with KC Studio on this special podcast that will provide valuable insights into how public transit and the World Cup are shaping cultural expression and events in the heart of our city. So thanks for joining us on this month’s stop of KC Studio’s Artful Connections Along the Streetcar podcast presented by Arvest Bank and sponsored by TIVOL. We’ll be featuring some of Kansas City’s finest cultural arts and civic organizations each month that are along the recently extended Kansas City Streetcar route that now goes from the Riverfront to the Country Club Plaza and UMKC. Streetcar riders are now able to hop on the streetcar at any of the stops and ride to and from their favorite exhibits and events throughout the year. So please take a ride with us.
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Hi everyone. I’m here today with Sidonie Garrett, the executive artistic director at Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. The Heart of America Shakespeare Festival was founded in Kansas City in 1991. A beloved staple of Kansas City culture, the festival has been producing free outdoor Shakespeare productions every summer for over three decades at Southmoreland Park. As a matter of fact, next year will be their 35th anniversary, and this year’s production will be Macbeth. Sidonie has been a dynamic force in the Kansas City theater world, where she has served as the executive artistic director of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival since 2011, and has directed more than two decades of festival productions. Sidonie, thank you so much for being here today. Let’s talk all things Macbeth. Why Macbeth? Why now? What’s happening? What’s going on?
Sidonie Garrett:
Wow, what a great question.
Michael Mackie:
You’re welcome.
Sidonie Garrett:
I’m so excited about it. Macbeth is the play that I learned in high school. It was the very first Shakespeare play that I encountered. I was just overwhelmed by how much I understood it and loved it, and I’ve always wanted to direct it. And I got to do that 15 years ago for the first time. That was a year of challenging financial life in the world, and the festival found ourselves in a very dark hole, and we needed help from the community, which came in an amazing gift of many dollars that allowed us to continue. And ever since then, we’ve been building back and are stronger than ever, and it was time to return to this gorgeous play.
Michael Mackie:
What I want to know is how has your approach changed from 15 years ago?
Sidonie Garrett:
Yeah, well, I learned more in the interim. So I’m smarter, I think. I’ve had more ideas. I have incredible collaborators. So we’re really looking at the play this year through the lens of the witches. I think the witches in this play are powerful. Obviously they frame the story in many ways. They are the reason why things happen in the play. And so really approaching it from that vantage point and their relationship with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is going to be key to the production. And also it is one of the most well-known of the plays, and it’s a big year in Kansas City, so World Cup visitors, they will know Macbeth across the globe. This is a well-known play.
Michael Mackie:
I feel like you’re going back to your roots a little bit.
Sidonie Garrett:
Going all the way back.
Michael Mackie:
Going back to your roots. Do you have a favorite scene in the play?
Sidonie Garrett:
I think I do, actually. Lady Macbeth gets a letter from her husband after he has encountered the witches on the road home from the wars, and they have told him that he will be king, and he sends this word to his wife at home and she says, you’re nice. I have to help you become king. So we’re going to figure this out and I’m going to push you along the road. And she calls down supernatural forces to help her do that. It’s a gorgeous scene.
Michael Mackie:
Support for Artful Connections Along the Streetcar comes from TIVOL. For more than a century, TIVOL has helped Kansas City mark treasured moments and create cherished memories with fine jewelry of the highest quality. Visit us at our Country Club Plaza or Hawthorne Plaza locations or online at tivol.com. TIVOL is proud to be a sponsor of this special podcast and to celebrate our city’s vibrant arts community. Outdoor Shakespeare has a litany of, I’m guessing, production challenges. Should we… Well, I’m not telling you something you don’t already know, but how do you jockey with, how do you design a production like that with outdoor in Southmoreland Park’s environment?
Sidonie Garrett:
It takes a village. Luckily, we have really talented designers who know how to design things to be outside, and we have a great team of people who make all of that happen. We have rain, we have wind, we have sun and heat, we have bugs, we have wildlife of all sorts. Actually in the park one night there was a possum in one of our road cases up in the production tent. So I get a text during the show, it’s like there’s a possum in here. I mean, you just never know what you’re going to get. So we have to be ready for all things. One year there was a microburst that came through the park and blew down a part of our set overnight, and we had to get about 15, 18 people out there in the morning to lift it up and then repair a piece of our set. So you never know what’s going to happen. We have to get very creative. We use particular materials that will withstand rain, weather, whatever’s going to come at us. And all of our fabrics that we use are breathable fabrics. We never put an actor on stage in a synthetic fabric that will not breathe. We have lots of ice packs and ice and cold water and fans, and we have all kinds of things that we do every year. We’ve learned how to do our best outdoors. In all respects.
Michael Mackie:
The show must go on.
Sidonie Garrett:
The show must go on.
Michael Mackie:
And the show will go on.
Sidonie Garrett:
It will. Unless, you know…
Michael Mackie:
It doesn’t.
Sidonie Garrett:
Lightning.
Michael Mackie:
Lightning. Lightning is the..
Sidonie Garrett:
Lightning Is bad.
Michael Mackie:
Lightning. Lightning bad. Okay, we got that.
Sidonie Garrett:
Metal swords in hands. Lightning.
Michael Mackie:
Lightning.
Sidonie Garrett:
Terrible.
Michael Mackie:
Oh, who knew?
Sidonie Garrett:
Yeah.
Michael Mackie:
The more you know. NBC logo shooting star. There you go. We have a little thing coming up this summer, a little soccer thing to do that’s coming up this summer. So what I want to know is how are you going to do things differently this year? And is there anything that you’re doing to adjust the massive influx of crowds that you hopefully will be seeing?
Sidonie Garrett:
I hope we will. I mean, I would love to have some international visitors. That’s why, again, Macbeth is an incredibly well-known play across the globe. Even if English is not your first language, you will follow the story. It’s one of the stories I think is most easily accessible to everyone. We are in competition with all of our friends across town for all the same things that everyone needs when you’re doing outdoor events. So scaffolding, golf carts, outdoor porta johns, all those things. So we’ve tried to be really ahead of the curve to get all of that in place. We are doing some signage in other languages. We are trying to be prepared for whatever’s coming our way and being very attentive and working with the neighborhood in terms of security and managing parking and anything else that may come with an influx of so many wonderful visitors. We hope for that.
Michael Mackie:
If you were a betting woman, do you think you’re going to see an influx of more international visitors? Fingers crossed.
Sidonie Garrett:
I hope. I also think, I’ve tried to put myself in the position of someone who’s traveled across the world and landed in Kansas City to see my team play. I mean, the World Cup is a frenzy, only equaled by the most major of our sporting events. But I mean, this is international, so it’s much bigger, as I’ve been told over and over. So I can’t imagine that I would be coming to Kansas City and I’m thinking I’ve got to get over there to see that Shakespeare Festival or that play or anything else that’s going on. We hope they will, but I also, I’m assuming they’re here to watch their teams, follow their teams. They’re going to eat places, they’re going to go to restaurants, and they’re going to have some drinks to celebrate. I’m going to hope we have a few that come and find us. And if they’re in town for more than a couple of days, hopefully they will say, we don’t have anything to do tonight. So what’s going on over there? We hope. We hope so.
Michael Mackie:
Let’s talk about these special ambience at Southmoreland Park. You’ve been there since 1993?
Sidonie Garrett:
Yeah.
Michael Mackie:
What’s the appeal? What’s the allure?
Sidonie Garrett:
When you sit out there, we have grass. So it’s a park. It’s like you decided to go out and bring your blanket, bring your chairs, bring a lovely basket of delicious food from home and just spread it out and sit. And there’s trees. We’re fortunately in a place where when the sun starts to go down, it’s going behind a couple of buildings. So it goes down and pretty soon you’re sort of in a shady spot and you just wait for the show and then it happens. And the first act is usually mostly in sunlight, still daylight. And then when we get to Act Two, we take an intermission, we come back for Act Two. It’s dark, and suddenly there’s the night sky and you’re under it. And it’s just really different than being even on . . . I love Starlight Theater, but they have concrete out there.
They don’t have grass. So we’re different in that way. And both good. Both great. But there’s something really special about being in that park too. I think we have that beautiful stone wall around us, and it really is a great sound creator for the audience as well. So the sound rolls up the hill and sort of hits that stone wall behind and kind of comes back and grabs people by the ear. So it makes you feel like you’re in a community of like-minded people. And people share food all the time. They hang out. They admire one another’s babies. Like theatrical tailgating.
It is. Thanks. I’m going to use that!
Michael Mackie:
Hashtag theatrical.
Sidonie Garrett:
Theatrical tailgating.
Michael Mackie:
You’re welcome, America.
Sidonie Garrett:
Thank you. Michael Mackie. Yes. Thank you.
Michael Mackie:
I’m going to put you on the spot. What would be your favorite production over the last 15 years?
Sidonie Garrett:
I thought about this. I knew you were going to ask me something like this because you’re tricky.
Michael Mackie:
Tricky.
Sidonie Garrett:
We did a production in our 20th year. We did two shows. We were able to do two shows in Rep, and we did a Midsummer Night’s Dream and Antony and Cleopatra. Never done Antony and Cleopatra before. It was great. Almost, It’s rarely done. But that production of Midsummer Night’s Dream was stellar. The cast was amazing. The look of it was amazing. It was fun. It was frivolous, it was delightful. It was frothy. It was frothy. I’m telling you. It had bounce, it had wings, it flew. It engaged audiences in a way. And as a director, when you’ve been working on a comedy for some weeks and you finally get an audience, to hear huge, huge laughter, you’re just like, and now I’m done. Thank you. I’ll move on. But hearing that and knowing that was in existence was quite amazing. So I have to say, in some ways that was my favorite.
Michael Mackie:
You have directed literally everything from Shakespeare to contemporary plays, but what I want to know is how does all that experience, what sort of influence does that bring into creating these Shakespeare festivals to big, well to modern audiences?
Sidonie Garrett:
I think every story that I get to tell feeds the next story. As I have as grown in my career, as you age, you hopefully get better at what you do. We hope. That should be at least the one benefit — we get better. So every time I work anywhere else, at another theater, if I’m a guest, I get to engage with different designers, different ideas, constantly, new actors appear, new designers appear, new creative people appear, and getting to work with them in smaller environments as well as out in the park, which is our largest canvas. It feeds everything. It makes me smarter, it makes me work harder. It makes me learn, every time. And storytelling is storytelling. You just get better at it. I hope everyone gets better at it as they do it more. And with Shakespeare, it’s really interesting because you revisit plays. So having done Romeo and Juliet as an assistant director years ago, then doing it as a director and then coming back to it yet again as a director, 15 years in between these things, you suddenly have different sensibilities about the characters and you empathize with characters in different ways.
Back in the day, it was always, oh, those kids, why doesn’t anyone want to help those kids? And then later you’re like, those kids, they need to get it together.
Michael Mackie:
Those kids, the worst.
Sidonie Garrett:
Yeah. You start to understand other characters’ perspectives as you age and have experiences, whether it’s joy, loss, broken hearts, whatever it is in your own life, it feeds into the work and it always feeds the next story.
Michael Mackie:
Your festival has always been a good blend of professionals and newbies, like emerging artists. What do you look for when you’re casting?
Sidonie Garrett:
We have unique needs because of Shakespeare. Not everyone is immediately adept at the language. Some people are. I envy them, but there are people who have trained, who’ve gone to a graduate program and they’ve worked on Shakespeare before. They’ve learned how to speak the language readily. Some people walk in the door and they’re just not, I would just say they’re just not ready. It doesn’t mean they’re not going to be great actors. They’re young and they don’t know. A lot of things we need are fight. Being prepared for stage combat is a big deal. This particular play we’re going to do this summer has at least two battles in it and a lot of other armed mayhem.
Michael Mackie:
Swords and whatnot.
Sidonie Garrett:
Swords and whatnot, yes, you got to have your swords. And so we only have a three-week rehearsal process. We can’t really train someone to fight and then teach them the fights that we’re going to do and then have it happen. So any dance, any dance training is helpful. Any period dance in particular is always helpful because you never know when we’re going to throw in a pavane. Who does the pavane?
Michael Mackie:
What is a pavane?
Sidonie Garrett:
It’s some kind of an old school dance.
Michael Mackie:
Oh, okay.
Sidonie Garrett:
Which I’ve learned about, right? The volta. I mean, there are these dances that we sometimes bring in, our choreographer will bring in, and just any body, any dance work you’ve done, any gymnastic work is only going to help. This year in Macbeth, the witches are going to be required to move in ways that may or may not be human. If that makes, we’re going to try to incorporate a different, if you’re a magical person, what do you have in your body arsenal to move? How can you move?
Michael Mackie:
You need to be nimble.
Sidonie Garrett:
Got to be nimble.
Michael Mackie:
You got to be nimble.
Sidonie Garrett:
So having people come in and show that is a big deal and it really gets them cast.
Michael Mackie:
Support for Artful Connections Along the Streetcar comes from Arvest Bank. Arvest Bank believes that financial confidence should be within reach for everyone. Whether you’re just getting started planning for your future or starting a new chapter, we are here to help you plan and meet your goals every step of the way. Because everyone deserves a financial partner who cares. Arvest Bank. We Believe. For more information, visit arvest.com or visit one of our 20 locations throughout Kansas City.
The festival is free. It’s always been free, free, free.
Sidonie Garrett:
That’s right.
Michael Mackie:
I mean, that takes a lot of effort and energy. How are we doing with fundraising? Has it been a challenge? Does it continue to be a challenge? I mean, what’s the backstory there?
Sidonie Garrett:
Great question. The cost of free is high and someone has to pay for whatever the thing is. So we at the festival are great beneficiaries of a lot of foundation support. We have an incredible amount of foundation support in Kansas City for the arts, corporate support to a smaller degree. And then individuals have really stepped up for us. We have a membership group called the Goodwill Society. Those people have really stepped up and we’ve added more and more members, which is really meaningful. We do a big gala fundraiser every year in February. Like many, many arts organizations have their…
Michael Mackie:
I’m going to need an invite to that next year.
Sidonie Garrett:
It’s a good one. It’s called Romantic Rebels. It’s so fun. We have fun. We dance, we eat. It’s really fun. And I would say that I think arts funding has fallen off a bit, and that’s probably for a variety of reasons. But I know obviously there are many causes in our city that need help. So as causes grow, the pools of money that are available go to different things, and I think you can’t argue with any donors. What do they want to fund? What are their interests? What are their concerns? What things do they want to support? So I think we’re always going to be out there with everyone else saying, we’re here too. Arts and culture. Do you want arts and culture in our city? We need help to do that because it’s not, it costs a lot of money to do what we do, and we really need people to support it and fund it.
And I mean, COVID is still a thing in terms of how people interact with the world. People got used to staying home more. So I just want to say also, think about the difference between live performance and what we see. I enjoy Netflix as much as the next person. I love being at home watching Netflix. But when I go see something live, whether it’s dance, music, theater, that’s real. You can’t argue with what you’re seeing. What we’re doing right now is the real deal. We’re not AI things; we are real people having an actual conversation. So to be in a room with a live visceral experience is incredible. I love having this kind of conversation, and having an audience with you in the house and them experiencing. Last night we had a show, I co-produced a show with the Black Repertory Theater that’s running right now. There was a storm, so those people were in the theater while sirens were going off at the end, and they’re all hanging together and waiting it out on the show. I mean, that’s an experience you’re not going to have sitting at home watching Netflix. And you’re like, well, do I want that experience? But yes, you do.
Michael Mackie:
You do.
Sidonie Garrett:
Because those people had a very specific time. They’re never going to forget that time. So it’s different. It is different.
Michael Mackie:
Do you have any favorite Shakespeare isms that you just pepper into everyday vernacular? You said a couple just while we were sitting here and it cracked me up. Yeah. What are your go-to Shakespeare isms?
Sidonie Garrett:
Right now? One of them is, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” It’s fun to just throw that at someone as they’re walking toward you. I got to say, one of my favorite lines of Shakespeare is also, can be used in every catty situation. It is, “Let me whisper friendly in your ear. Sell while you can; you are not for all markets.” I love that one.
Michael Mackie:
That one’s good. What’s that from?
Sidonie Garrett:
That’s from As You Like It.
Michael Mackie:
Okay.
Sidonie Garrett:
It’s a good one. One of my favorites from Much Ado About Nothing is, excuse me, Beatrice and Benedick that famous sparring couple, right? They’re in a big fight and she finally says to him, “You always end with a Jade’s trick. I know you of old.”
That’s a good one,right?
Michael Mackie:
That is a good one. With the finger point and everything.
Sidonie Garrett:
Oh, yeah. Drama.
Michael Mackie:
Instant
Sidonie Garrett:
Instant drama.
Michael Mackie:
Instant drama.
Sidonie Garrett:
I mean, there’s so many Shakespeare things, words, phrases that we use all the time. They’re peppered in life. We don’t even know sometimes where they’re from. It’s like, is that from Shakespeare or the Bible? Those quote things that people do. But so many things.
Michael Mackie:
Support for Artful Connections Along the Streetcar comes from TIVOL. For more than a century, TIVOL has helped Kansas City mark treasured moments and create cherished memories with fine jewelry of the highest quality. Visit us at our Country Club Plaza or Hawthorne Plaza locations or online at tivol.com. TIVOL is proud to be a sponsor of this special podcast and to celebrate our city’s vibrant arts community.
You are upping the ante when it comes to community engagement, new educational programs, and more just year-round activities. Let’s talk about the vision for all three of those things and sort of what’s it going to look like over the next few years.
Sidonie Garrett:
We want to do all that you just said. We definitely are trying to constantly find partnerships in particular that make sense for students and audiences. So this program I just discussed with, we’re doing, it’s a play ,called The African Company Presents Richard III. It’s written by Carlyle Brown, and it is about a Black theater company in 1821 in New York City that actually existed called The African Company, and they were doing Shakespeare and other plays back then. And this playwright wrote a play about that. So that’s history, theater history, and certainly Black theater history that I never knew until I engaged with this play. So bringing stories like that forward, things that are Shakespeare inspired, Shakespeare adjacent, something that has to do with Shakespeare and what he wrote, is really important because there’s so many hidden stories to tell. It’s also finding ways to take the plays, and how do we use these stories that are so resonant today?
How do we use that in different ways? We’ve done collaborations in the past with Kansas City Symphony. We did something with the Ballet. We’ve done things with Kansas City Actors Theatre, KC Rep, finding ways to engage. We did something at The Museum of Kansas City before, finding new ways to take Shakespeare and pair it with another art form that makes sense. We’ve done some things with the Bach Aria Soloists in the past. Beautiful. We do scenes that we intersperse with music. I mean, it’s a great pairing, and it allows people that may think, every time, it’s like if someone’s in the audience that thinks they don’t like Shakespeare, it gives ’em a chance to go, okay, I might like Shakespeare. It’s not something I’m not going to understand or not going to like. It’s actually enjoyable and has meaning in my life, too. I think that’s the best part of it. But yes, we have year-round education programs for kids right now, and we want to continue to increase those because, these are plays, again, how can you, it’s poetry. So I mean, there are great programs that have been done across the country that pair rap mentality with Shakespeare. It’s all rhyme, right? How do you take the rhyme and turn it into something that is given over in a different way that is more easily accessible for people. Constantly exploring other partnerships and opportunities. Next year we are 35 years old. That’s a big deal.
Michael Mackie:
That is a big deal.
Sidonie Garrett:
Yeah. So we have a lot of plans. We’re talking about things right now strategically to try to get us over the next five years, continuing in the park always and keeping that free, but other things can be surrounding it that make sense to feed what we’re doing out there.
Michael Mackie:
Speaking of the park, what should first-time festivalgoers, any tips, tricks, techniques that you would suggest for first-timers who are going,?
Sidonie Garrett:
Yep.
Michael Mackie:
Okay.
Sidonie Garrett:
Number one, don’t be concerned that you’re not going to get it, because you will. You will get it. That’s always the first thing. Number two, it’s not that hot. I’m just going to say, generally not that hot. We start June 17th, so when you think about mid-June, come on out. Bring some water. We’ve got food on site. If you don’t want to drag food out there, you can buy it there. You can also bring your own food if you want. We have food and beverages for sale. You can just walk in, throw down a blanket, buy some food, eat it, and have a great time. Parking will be available in the Nelson-Atkins lot. Most nights you can pay to park there. There’s also hopefully still going to be some street parking around. I know a lot of people do that. And we have new options, too. I mean, you can ride a bike over there. We will watch your bike while you watch the show. We have our bus system and we also have this, I don’t know, have you heard about this streetcar that we have in Kansas City?
Michael Mackie:
Streetcar? Tell me more. What?
Sidonie Garrett:
We have a streetcar now.
Michael Mackie:
Shut up.
Sidonie Garrett:
Yeah, and it goes pretty much right near the park, like a block away from the park.
Michael Mackie:
Well, I’ll be.
Sidonie Garrett:
I know. So you could ride that if you wanted to.
Michael Mackie:
For free. It can not be a night of free, all free, all night.
Sidonie Garrett:
I’m telling you. Free, right?
Michael Mackie:
Free.
Sidonie Garrett:
Yeah. So I would say you don’t have to dress up to come to the festival. Wear your shorts, be comfortable. We are not fussy. We are on the ground. So it’s a unique, cool experience. Don’t be intimidated by it. And if you have a dollar to throw in the bucket, great. If you can give anything, we love donations. We’re happy to take ’em. But again, it is bring everybody, you can also afford to bring the whole family. That’s the other cool part, because we’re free. And if you give us five bucks for six people, great. That’s what we’re here for. So yeah, just don’t be intimidated or worry about anything. It’s going to be fine out there.
Michael Mackie:
Can I get a sneak peek of what you have coming up? Maybe in 2027? Can we talk about future productions?
Sidonie Garrett:
I will tell you, I don’t know yet because I always have about six things bubbling around, and it kind of depends on
Michael Mackie:
That. Just six?
Sidonie Garrett:
Just six. Well, 12. But anyway, we will make our announcement about next season in late September, early October. There’s a betting pool right now going on amongst the actors who will be in the show. They always come up to me when we’re in rehearsal or during the run, and they’re like, I know what you’re doing. And then they tell me, and it’s always cute. So 35 years is a big deal. Obviously.
We’re trying to figure out, the decision-making process is always, first off, what can we afford to do? And yes, some shows could be more expensive than others, and certainly when we were doing a two-show season, you may well imagine that costs more money. So it’s a great time. A two-show repertory season, great for the company, great for the actors, great for the audiences. They get to see two things. I mean, we love doing it, but it just costs a great deal more money. So it’s always just, if anyone’s listening and wants to send X amount of dollars, we can do two shows next summer.
Michael Mackie:
We’re going to flash up your Venmo just right.
Sidonie Garrett:
Yeah, just put that up there. But also what’s going on in the world and what’s really, what can we cast well here, where we predominantly cast from Kansas City. So we’re a very local based company and it’s always about what can we do the very best right now? And also mostly, what’s going to speak to the world and what’s going to speak to our world? What do we need? Last year we laughed a lot because we needed it and it was lush and we did Love’s Labour’s Lost set in the 1950s. It felt like it was a time away from us, but it was a gorgeous time and it was a fun time, and it was a lush time, and it was romantic. And this year we’re going to
Michael Mackie:
Going full tilt, Shakespeare.
Sidonie Garrett:
Full tilt. We’re going full tilt into kilts and magic and big swords, lopping off heads. I mean, that’s where we’re going, so we’ll see. I feel like maybe we need that right now. This play is so popular. People love this play and they’re really hungry to see this play. It’s 15 years too. There are kids that have been born in this 15 years that would have never seen this play probably. So we have a whole new audience coming up just because people have been born, and we haven’t done the play in a while.
Michael Mackie:
Speaking of, is there anything that you are dying to do or do again?
Sidonie Garrett:
Oh yeah. Always so many things though. I mean, it’s not just one thing, but I hope to do A Midsummer Night’s Dream again before I’m done. Because it’s one of the most fun plays of the entire canon. The play within the play in that play is one of the funniest things ever. And when we have kids do it, it’s hilarious. We’ve done it as a one-off in another collaboration, and it’s always funny doing it in the park and hearing the laughter of that huge audience of a 2,000-people audience at that scene. There’s nothing like it. There’s just nothing like it. I love a lot of the plays. I would love to do Titus Andronicus one day, probably indoors. We also want to do more things as collaboration projects indoors with other theaters, with other companies. So we’ll see what we can afford to do. It’s always about money. If we had more money, we could do anything.
Michael Mackie:
We joked about the streetcar, but truly, in your heart of hearts, do you think it’s going to make, now that it goes from the Country Club Plaza all the way to the Riverfront, do you think that’s going to make an impact?
Sidonie Garrett:
I do. I think some people will make a choice to ride that to come with us, to come be with us. It will save them from having to figure out where to park. We are only a block away from the, we’re right on the Arterie stop, which is pretty cool.
Michael Mackie:
Literally.
Sidonie Garrett:
Literally,. though. Yeah, it’s right there. The Arterie, right, which is what it’s called. And it would take you straight past the Kemper Museum and right down the street to where Southmoreland Park is. So it’s a block. It’s pretty cool. Very convenient. And we love being in that neighborhood. There we are with the Kemper Museum, Kansas City Art Institute, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and then a block away is UMKC with the Conservatory and the Department of Theatre. So those are our partners. We all work together. They help us tremendously and we try to support them and cross-promote them, and it’s great to be right in the middle of that arts corridor right there. Yeah.
Michael Mackie:
What else? What else have we not talked about?
Sidonie Garrett:
So many
Michael Mackie:
That you’re dying to dish on, here on Artful Connections Along the Streetcar?
Sidonie Garrett:
Well, our offices are on Main Street. We’re right there by the Unicorn Theatre. The Madrid is there, and then on down the road, you think about all the things that are on Main Street and on that corridor and on the streetcar, and then that arts neighborhood we’re in. I think we have so many. . . I just want to laud how many incredible arts and culture institutes, institutions that we have, and we need people to come back and join us to see what the art is and be part of the art. They’re not just audience members for us, they’re also, they’re the final element to the circle of storytelling. You can tell a story out into the void, but once the people get there, everything changes. And you hear gasps, and you hear laughter, and you hear Mmmmm even, I mean, anything the audience does and having them there is the whole point.
So go see a play. Go see a play. I can guarantee you it will be like nothing that’s in your living room. It’s going to be different. And we need our community to be part of us all the time. We need them to experience with us and have a very different visceral, I just love that word because it is, it’s a visceral experience, and it’s a unique experience. I mean, if I go see a piece of art hanging on the wall at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, my perception and yours are going to be very different. I may love it, I may hate it, but I’m going to have some interaction with that. And certainly if I’m seeing a play, or hearing someone sing, or watching dancers do something I could never do, it’s a unique and wonderful thing and a once-in- a-lifetime moment for me, however, that’s going to impact me.
So fill your lives with that. I think also. We need audiences. We need more audiences, all of us. And it’s great. Having a 500-person night out in the park is huge because that’s a big house, right? Having 2,000 people in the park, it’s incredible what that does to the performance too, to have, when you’re an actor and you go out and you see that wonderful group of people and know that they’re there with you and you feel that energy coming back at you. It’s really, there’s nothing like it. It’s so incredible. So support your arts if you can. Come see what we do, buy a ticket or come for free to us, but come see us. We need you.
Michael Mackie:
You are days away, days away from launching. Are you nervous? Are you excited? What are you?
Sidonie Garrett:
I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. I just want to, when you’re working on something, I was working on Macbeth for the whole year to get here. So you go from the thought of it, the planning of it, then to the rehearsal of it, and now to the performance of it. I can’t wait for the people to join us. We need them with us, and it’s going to be great. And it’s not . . . you know, you’re under the night sky. It’s amazing. We’re on the grass. Come see us. It’s going to be beautiful.
Michael Mackie:
What a nice note to end on. Sidonie, thank you for joining us today. Good luck with your debut. That stays away. No pressure. No pressure. So I just wanted to say thanks for joining us today on Artful Connections Along the Streetcar.
Sidonie Garrett:
Thank you so much.
Michael Mackie:
Thank you so much for joining us today on our monthly stop of the Artful Connections Along the Streetcar podcast, presented by Arvest Bank and sponsored by TIVOL. You can find this podcast and our future stops wherever you find your favorite podcast. As a reminder, this is Michael Mackie for KC Studio, Kansas City’s only full-time magazine, website, and e-newsletter with professional journalists covering the cultural arts region. Go to kc studio.org to check out all our upcoming arts events, our latest podcast, and to sign up now to receive your free, yes, just like the streetcar, your free magazine, six times a year in your mailbox, or to receive our weekly newsletters at kcstudio.org/subscribe. Thanks for riding with us during this month’s episode.
