Calvin Arsenia will play the role of Starkeeper and also perform on harp for the Music Theater Heritage production of “Carousel,” April 3-27, 2025. (Music Theater Heritage)
The Unicorn Theatre enters a new era with a 2024-25 season that includes a mix of shows, some scheduled under now-retired artistic director Cynthia Levin and others chosen by the company’s new artistic leader, Ernie Nolan. The season as it now exists is an eclectic lineup of plays that have a few things in common: Audacity, unpredictability and cultural currency.
The season:
“The Heart Sellers” by Lloyd Suh, Oct. 23-Nov. 10. Set on Thanksgiving in 1973, this two-hander depicts a sudden friendship between Jane, a Filipina, and Luna, a Korean, both lonely immigrants who rarely see their workaholic husbands. The play depicts an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner of frozen turkey and cheap wine as they compare impressions of life in the strange land of America and voice their hopes and dreams. Vi Tran directs.
“Ebenezer Scrooge’s Big KCMO Christmas Show” by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, Nov. 27-Dec. 22. The Unicorn describes it as a fast-paced, imaginative staging of “the world’s most famous holiday tale. Here’s a taste of what to expect: “Ebenezer Scrooge and friends terrorize the good citizens of the Unicorn Theatre in search of redemption and the true spirit of the holiday season.” The Unicorn’s production history is marked by searing drama and social commentary, but this show promises “wacky fun for the entire family.” Directed by Ernie Nolan.
“Doctor Moloch” by Carla Milarch, Jan. 29-Feb. 16, 2025. The title character is an “AI robot” who learns to understand people after an actress named Selena is recruited to teach Moloch about human emotions. Directed by Sidonie Garrett.
“Fire Work” by Mary Glen Fredrick, March 12-30, 2025. The play, which the Unicorn describes as a utopian fantasy, depicts a future when children (played by adults) work in factories and ultimately decide to take a stand against the repressive adult world. This is a world premiere. Directed by Katie Gilchrist.
“Fat Ham” by James Ijames, May 14-June 8, 2025. This play, which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, tells the story of Juicy, a Black, queer, southern college student visited by the ghost of his father, who demands that Juicy avenge his murder. But the sensitive and self-aware Juicy is trying to break the cycles of violence.
Learn more at unicorntheatre.org. Call 816.531.7529.
Music Theater Heritage has prepared a season that reflects the breadth and depth of classic Broadway musicals.
“Little Women,” based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, MTH Main Stage on the third level of Crown Center, Feb. 13-March 2. The show has a book by Allan Knee, lyrics by Mindi Dickstein and music by Jason Howard.
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel,” Main Stage, April 3-27. The production celebrates the show’s 80th anniversary and is chock-full of classic R&H melodies. The team based the show on the play “Liliom” by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar. From that source material R&H crafted a story about an ill-fated love affair between a carousel barker and a millworker. The songs include the classic “If I Loved You” and the anthemic “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
“Guys & Dolls,” Grand Theater on the fourth floor of Crown Center, June 5-29. The classic musical version of Damon Runyon’s stories about New York gamblers features music and lyrics by Frank Loser and a book by Jo Sterling and Abe Burrows. According to MTH, stage and screen actor and area native Nathan Darrow will play Sky Masterson. Among the songs are “Fugue for Tinhorns,” “Luck Be a Lady” and “A Bushel and a Peck.”
“Cats,” the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Grand Theater Aug. 7-31. MTH hopes to repeat a sold-out run of when the company first staged the show in 2018. This is a musical that needs no introduction. It ran for 21 years in London and 18 years in New York.
“Rent,” Jonathan Larson’s award-winning musical about unemployed denizens of lower Manhattan, Main Stage, Oct. 2-26. Larson’s adaptation of Puccini’s “La Boheme” became a runaway hit and ran 12 years on Broadway.
In addition, MTH will produce a series of concerts as the Ruby Room Series. The shows will celebrate the music of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Credence Clearwater Revival, Janet Jackson, the Everly Brothers, the Righteous Brothers, the Doobie Brothers, Dionne Warwick, Lionel Richie, James Taylor and Jimmy Buffet.
Find details at www.mthkc.com.
KC Melting Pot Theatre has titled its 2024-25 season at “A Tribute to African American Theatre.” The lineup includes two August Wilson plays and one by Melting Pot’s resident playwright Lewis Morrow. Specific dates will be announced later.
Here’s the schedule:
“Seven Guitars” by August Wilson, directed by Melonnie Walker. The show kicks off the season in Sept. 12-21. The play depicts a cascade of events triggered when musician Floyd Barton returns to the Hill District in Pittsburgh after a stint in prison.
“Jawbone Crack Quick” by Lewis Morrow, Dec. 5-14. Directed by Ile Haggins. A couple, traumatized by a recent home invasion, see their shock and pain exacerbated by a police detective with unclear motives.
“Fences” by August Wilson, Feb. 13-22, 2025. Directed by Lynn King. This is the drama that established Wilson as a playwright of national stature and earned his first Pulitzer Prize. Central to the story is the clash of desires, hopes and bitter disappointments between a father and son.
“Family Sideshow” by Brysen Boyd, May 1-10, 2025. Directed by artistic director Nicole Hodges Persley. KCMPT described the play as a dark comedy depicting a “chaotic and absurd night of revelations” when a dysfunctional family reunites for one night.
KC Melting Pot performs at Just Off Broadway Theatre in Penn Valley Park. Learn more at kcmeltingpot.com.
The Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City returns with a four-show season of three musicals and a play:
“Hip Hop Cinderella,” a musical for young audiences originally staged at the Nashville Children’s Theatre that punts the familiar story out of the past into a sci-fi future. With music and lyrics by Rona Siddiqui and a book by Scott Elmegreen, the “intergalactic romp” retells the story of teenage Cinderella, her rapping robot pal Runka, a cruel stepmother named Lady Zurka and two media-obsessed sisters, Zig and Zag. The prince of the galaxy throws a hip-hop ball and a rap competition, which prompts Cinderella to compete as “Ella C.” The show runs Nov. 22-Dec. 8 at the Gem Theater on 18th Street in the jazz district.
“Hairspray,” the Broadway musical hit based on the John Waters film, will be a co-production between the KC Black Rep and the White Theatre at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park. Set in 1962, the show offers a snapshot of a pre-Flower Power time, when young people began imagining a future where all people — Black and white — could be themselves. The show runs Feb. 1-23, 2025.
“Mahalia,” a gospel musical featuring the music of the legendary Mahalia Jackson and starring Mia Ramsey, executive director of the Kansas City Boys and Kansas City Girls choirs. Jackson was born in 1911, the granddaughter of enslaved people, and grew up in poverty in New Orleans. She began her singing career in Chicago. After 15 years of irregular employment as a singer, her 1947 recording of “Move On Up a Little Higher,” which reportedly sold 2 million copies, made her a nationally known artist who went on to tour Europe. The show will run March 20-April 6 at a venue to be determined.
“Thoughts of a Colored Man” by Keenan Scott II opened in New York in 2021 and became the first play on Broadway written by and directed by Black men with a Black actor in the lead role. Using songs, prose and slam poetry, the show depicts Black life in America through the stories of seven black men living in Brooklyn. The show runs May 8-18, 2025 at a location to be determined.
For more information, BRTKC.org.
The New Theatre, the Overland Park playhouse where patrons can fill their plates in the buffet line before the show, has prepared a season that kicks off with a world premiere:
“An Old Fashioned Family Murder” by Joe DiPietro. DiPietro is known for writing the books and lyrics for several musicals, including the long-running off-Broadway hit “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.” Sally Struthers, of “All in the Family” fame, headlines the show, which runs Sept. 11-Nov. 17.
The rest of the New Theatre season includes “Nunsense,” starring Vicki Lewis (of NBC’s “NewsRadio”) Nov. 20, 2024-Feb. 2, 2025; the Neil Simon comedy “Rumors!” starring Alley Mills (“The Wonder Years,” “The Bold and the Beautiful”), Feb. 5-April 13, 2025; the popular Broadway hit “Jersey Boys,” April 17-June 22, 2025; and “Clue,” the comedy inspired by the classic board game and based on the 1985 movie, June 26-Sept 7, 2025.
Learn more at newtheatre.com.
The Coterie, Kansas City’s award-winning young-audiences theater located on Level 1 of the Crown Center Shops, will kick off its 2024-25 season with the world premiere of “Horse Power: Tom Bass’ American Story,” written by Michelle Tyrene Johnson. Tom Bass was a Missourian born into slavery who became known as an expert horseman and horse whisperer who helped start the American Royal’s first horse show.
The play’s central character is Natalia Edmonds, a Black teenager who loves horses and who learns about the Tom Bass legacy as she struggles with modern-day racism. The show is co-produced with the American Royal and features the work of What If Puppets. The show runs Sept. 11-Oct. 6.
The rest of the season:
“Electric Poe,” a co-production with the Union Cemetery Historical Society, Oct. 17-Nov. 3.
“Disney and Pixar’s Finding Nemo TYA” in a co-production with What If Puppets, Nov. 6-Dec. 30.
The musical “Just Ask!” based on the young-readers book by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and co-produced with What If Puppets. With a book by Fran Sillau (who also directs the show) and music and lyrics by Mark Kurtz, the production runs Jan. 29-Feb. 23, 2025.
“Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale,” featuring a book and lyrics by Karen Zacarias and music by Deborah Wicks La Puma, March 19-May 4, 2025.
“A Year With Frog and Toad,” based on the books by Arnold Lobel and featuring a story and lyrics by William Reale with music by Robert Reale, June 11-Aug. 3, 2025.
For more information visit www.thecoterie.org.
Theatre for Young America, the Kansas City area’s oldest young-audiences theater company, will kick off its 2024-25 season with a production of “Goodnight Moon,” a musical stage version of Margaret Wise Brown’s children’s book that was published in 1947 and gradually became a bestseller. The plot is pretty simple: A bunny says goodnight to toys, objects and creatures before falling asleep. The show runs Oct. 9-Nov. 2.
The rest of the season:
“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” based on the young-adult novel by Barbara Robinson, depicts what happens when the perpetually rowdy Herdman siblings are cast in a church Christmas pageant. The play runs Nov. 29-Dec. 24.
“Junie B. Jones, The Musical,” by Marcy Heisler and Zina Goodrich, is based on four of the books in the best-selling series by Barbara Parks. The show depicts Junie’s first day in first grade. The show is scheduled to run March 4-April 5, 2025.
“Bill Robinson and Shirley Temple” is based on the unique friendship between veteran dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and child star Shirley Temple in 1930s Hollywood. The show runs April 29-May 17, 2025.
“Snow White” evokes the fairy tale about a maiden who flees the threats of an evil queen and finds refuge with seven quirky dwarves in a show that includes a sympathetic portrayal of the queen and how she became so evil. It runs June 10-28, 2025.
“Puss ’n Boots” revisits the classic children’s tale about a poor mill boy who finds himself in an adventure that includes a princess and a clever talking cat. The show runs July 15-26, 2025.
TYA performs on the City Stage on the lower level of Union Station. Visit tya.org.
Kansas City Actors Theatre continues its 20th-anniversary season with the classic thriller “Dial M for Murder,” which runs Sept. 11-29 at City Stage in Union Station. This version is by journeyman playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, who adapted the original script by Frederick Knott.
The KCAT season concludes with John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt: A Parable,” which runs March 6-23, 2025 at City Stage. Part mystery and part commentary on church sex-abuse scandals — as well as a reflection on the gender and class divisions between priests and nuns, the play won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
Learn more at kcactors.org.
PNC Broadway Kansas City began a jam-packed season of classic musicals for the 2024-25 season with “Moulin Rouge!’’ based on the Baz Luhrmann film, July 23-Aug. 4 at the Music Hall.
The rest of the season:
“Funny Girl,” Dec. 3-8 at the Music Hall.
“Chicago,” Jan. 7-12, 2025, at the Muriel Kauffman Theatre in the Kauffman Performing Arts Center.
“Parade,” Jan. 28-Feb. 2, 2025, Kauffman Theatre.
“Beetlejuice,” Feb. 18-23, 2025, the Music Hall.
“Back to the Future,” April 1-6, 2025, the Music Hall.
“The Lion King,” May 22-June 1, 2025, the Music Hall.
“The Wiz,” July 8-13, 2025, the Music Hall.
To learn more, visit americantheatreguild.com.
When we first reported Kansas City Rep’s 2024-25 season, the final slot had not been filled. Now it has. So here’s the lineup: “Once,” the hit folk musical based on John Carney’s film, Sept. 3-22, the Spencer Theatre; “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” Copaken Stage, Oct. 8-27; “A Christmas Carol,” Nov. 23-Dec. 28 at the Spencer; “Broke-ology,” Feb. 11-March 2, 2025, at the Copaken; and Kate Hamill’s “Emma,” an irreverent adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, at the Spencer, May 6-25, 2025.
Visit kcrep.org.
Spinning Tree Theatre came in under the wire with this lineup: “Bubble Boy,” Oct. 30-Nov. 3; Young Playwrights Festival, Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2025; “First Generation” by Victor Wishna, April 15-19, 2025; “The Alien Logs of Super Jewels,” June 20-22, 2025.
All Spinning Tree productions are presented at the Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center, 8788 Metcalf, Overland Park.
