HAMILTON Angelica National Tour – Julia K. Harriman, Sabrina Sloan, Isa Briones and Company (photo by Joan Marcus
Musicals highlight the next two months on Kansas City stages, along with KC premieres from the Rep, New Theatre Restaurant and the Unicorn. Lots to choose from this Spring at the theater.
SIX
Now through March 5 | Music Hall downtown
With 23 awards under their bodice and doublets — including the Tony® for Best Original Score — the six sexy Queens of King Henry VIII put it all out there in this international musical hit. Tickets at www.broadwayinkc.com.
CONDO-MONIUM
Now through April 16 | New Theatre Restaurant
Brady Bunch star Barry Williams plays a cross-dressing banker who lives in an apartment building that a ruthless real estate company wants to turn into pricey condos.
London theatre critics raved. “I laughed the entire time,” praised the Sunday Times for this madcap comedy making its American premiere at the New Theatre under the sure hand of comedy director extraordinaire Dennis Hennessy. Tickets at www.newtheatre.com.
JUNIE B JONES AND A LITTLE MONKEY BUSINESS
Now through April 15 | City Stage in Union Station
Theatre for Young America presents this audience favorite,
adapted from the popular book by Barbara Park. Junie’s all excited when her folks tell her they’re getting a present for the kindergartener — a baby brother! Mayhem ensues when she hears her grandparents say, “he’s the cutest little monkey,” and Junie gets an idea that gets her in trouble . . . again. Tickets at www.tya.org.
ONCE
March 3-12 | Warwick Theatre
The 2012 Tony® Award winner for Best Musical — based on the Academy Award-winning 2006 film — gets its first local production, thanks to the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre at 3927 Main. Guy, a heartbroken musician busking for coins on the streets of Dublin, meets Girl, a Czech immigrant with a complicated history and a broken vacuum cleaner. Despite their differences, Guy and Girl find common ground, a shared language, and genuine love in creating music together. Tickets at www.metkc.org.
FORBIDDEN BROADWAY
March 9-12 | Starlight Indoors
This all-new satirical roast spoofs 30 Broadway show tunes you know by heart. Whether you are a seasoned theatregoer or new to it all, the Tony Award® winning Forbidden Broadway is your one-stop ticket to non-stop laughs. Tickets at kcstarlight.com.
JUKEBOX DOO WOP
March 10 – April 2 | Quality Hill Playhouse
Celebrate the toe-tapping sounds of “Sh-Boom,” “Why Do Fools Fall In Love,” “One Fine Day,” “Who’s Sorry Now,” “Stay (Just a Little Bit Longer),” “Working My Way Back To You” and two dozen more 50s and 60s pop hits with Andrea Boswell-Burns, Christina Burton, Joe Carr and Matt Leisy. Of course J. Kent Barnhart will be tickling the ivories at this classy cabaret. Tickets at www.qualityhillplayhouse.com.
THE RIPPLE, THE WAVE THAT CARRIED ME HOME
March 14 – April 2 | Copaken Stage downtown
KC Rep presents the world premiere of a moving exploration of one family’s response to injustice and a daughter’s reckoning with her political inheritance. In a fight to integrate public swimming pools in 1960s Kansas, a young girl must decide whether she’s ready to confront a past she has tried her whole life to forget. A deeply moving story about justice, legacy, memory and the ultimate challenge of forgiveness. Tickets at www.kcrep.org.
MARYS SEACOLE
March 15 – April 2 | Unicorn Theatre
Inspired by the real life of Mary Seacole, a British-Jamaican nurse and businesswoman who cared for soldiers during the Crimean War, this KC premiere charts one Black woman’s extraordinary journey through space and time — from mid-1800s Jamaica to a modern-day nursing home — with fierce theatricality, holding up a funhouse mirror to demonstrate how one woman’s brazen spirit can pulse through our reality to this day. Tickets at www.unicorntheatre.org.
HAMILTON
March 21 – April 2 | Music Hall downtown
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brilliant retelling of our nation’s genesis returns to Kansas City for two more weeks. Wanna be in the room where it happens? Think the birth pangs of our great democracy were tidier than Jan. 6? Get thee to the Music Hall for this Tony Award® and Pulitzer Prize winning event and find out. Tickets at BroadwayinKC.com.
DON’T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS
April 4 – May 21 | The Coterie
The popular children’s book by Caldecott honoree Mo Willems comes to vivid musical life with the help of the folks at Mesner Puppet Theatre. Tickets at www.thecoterie.org.
THE SECRET GARDEN
April 6-23 | Music Theater Heritage
A compelling tale of forgiveness and renewal, The Secret Garden enjoys its first-ever local professional production at MTH in Crown Center. Nominated for six Tony® Awards, the musical’s story of faith, family and the power of dreams is not to be missed. Bonus value: Thursday and Sunday performances feature pre-show talks with MTH founder and musical theater expert George Harter. Tickets at www.musictheaterheritage.com.
ANNIE
April 18-23 | Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
The sun will always come out tomorrow, as long as this best-loved musical returns to Kansas City in a brand new production. You can’t beat the iconic book and score by Tony Award®-winners Thomas Meehan, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin. And at the beautiful Kauffman Theatre, you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll look and sound great. Tickets at www.broadwayinkc.com.
