Cynthia Levin (photo by Manon Halliburton)
Women artists, producers and directors have played a vital role in building the theater scene Kansas Citians have come to know and admire. Consider:
Kansas City Repertory Theatre was founded in 1964 by Dr. Patricia McIlrath, who taught theater at the local college that became UMKC. The Rep was among a wave of new theater companies established in the 1960s, spurred by the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts. Initially, what was then called the UMKC Summer Repertory Theatre offered a limited season. The company’s name was soon changed to Missouri Repertory Theatre. Initially the theater was a true repertory company and hired a company of actors to perform in each production for a season. Under that system, an actor could play the lead in one show and appear in a minor supporting role in the next. Under McIlrath the Rep established an annual touring company that initially performed in the Midwest but eventually expanded to include performances throughout the country. McIlrath passed away in 1999. Many local theater professionals, including Richard Carrothers and Dennis Hennessy, owners of the New Theatre, and a generation of talented actors studied under “Doctor Mac.” Worth noting: McIlrath is the only female artistic director in the Rep’s history.
The Unicorn Theatre started its unique history as Theatre Workshop in a warehouse in the old River Market in 1974. Subsequent performance spaces included a basement beneath a commercial strip near the Country Club Plaza and an old school just off Southwest Trafficway. It was after director/actor Cynthia Levin became artistic director in 1983 that the company, by then called the Unicorn Theatre, began significant artistic growth. It moved into an old garage space near 39th and Main St., where it remains today. Under Levin, the company became increasingly ambitious in its programming, staging plays as well as musicals. A highlight was Levin’s production of Tony Kushner’s epic-length “Angels in America.” Each season the company racked up an increasing track record of plays and musicals that began on Broadway or off-Broadway. Under Levin, the Unicorn became a founding member of the National New Play Network. Levin retired in 2024 after 45 years with the company.
The Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, which stages free performances each summer in Southmoreland Park across Oak Street from The Nelson-Atkins Museum, was the brainchild of the late Marilyn Strauss. Strauss produced or co-produced at least four shows on Broadway in the 1970s and ’80s. She often told a story about how legendary New York producer Joe Papp encouraged her to return to Kansas City and start a Shakespeare festival. The HASF’s debut production was “The Tempest” in 1993. R. Crosby Kemper III was the first board president and helped raise money for the fledgling company. Sidonie Garrett, the executive artistic director since 2011, has been part of the festival for 30 years. Her festival directing credits include an outstanding “Hamlet” starring Nathan Darrow in 2017 and a vivid “Othello” with Damon Gupton in 2008. She has also directed shows for the Unicorn, Kansas City Actors Theatre, the Coterie and the White Theatre at the Jewish Community Center.
The Coterie was founded in 1979 by Judith Yeckel and Vicky Lee, two graduate students in theater from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The first performance venue was a vacant retail space in Crown Center. Later the theater relocated to its permanent home on Crown Center’s first floor. Subsequent artistic directors included Jim Tibbs, Pam Sterling, Jeff Church, Heidi Van (interim) and, currently, Khalia Davis, who was appointed in 2024. The longtime executive director, Joette Pelster, had led the company from 1993 through Nov. 25, 2022. She passed away a week after announcing her intention to retire in early 2023. Prior to her tenure at The Coterie, Pelster served as the Folly Theater’s marketing director and as the first executive director of Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey. In 1997, she took a leave of absence from The Coterie to help prepare the historic Gem Theater to reopen in the 18th and Vine District.
Felicia Hardison Londré, a noted scholar and theater historian, is an honorary co-founder of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. Londré came to Kansas City in 1975 to teach at UMKC, first as an associate professor and then as a full professor three years later. From 1987 to 2000, Londré served as dramaturg and literary manager at what was then still called Missouri Repertory Theatre. She is a playwright and translator who has published many books, but arguably her greatest contribution to Kansas City was her history, “The Enchanted Years of the Stage: Kansas City at the Crossroads of American Theater, 1870-1930.” Brimming with facts and anecdotes, her book paints a memorable portrait of the growth of theater locally as Kansas City metamorphosed from a rowdy frontier town to a thriving metropolis at the intersection of the Missouri and Kansas rivers.
