Westport Center for the Arts will offer a look at one of the area’s idyllic suburbs with “Prairie Village Home Companion” during the annual Kansas City Fringe Festival.
Actors Jim Sturgill and Suzanne Welch will lead a “live” radio broadcast that examines the historic town of 21,000 proud residents united by seven different homeowners associations and a school district that doesn’t bear its name.
Musicians Michael Fraser and Tenley Hansen will provide musical accompaniment. Fraser and Hansen are both members of the Short Leaf band.
Performances are 1:30 p.m., Sunday, July 22; 9 p.m., Thurday, July 26; and 6 p.m., Saturday, July 28. All performances will be held at the Jerome Stage at Unicorn Theatre, 3828 Main Street. Tickets are $10 with a Fringe Festival button.
Welch teaches writing and literature at a local university. She became a fan of Garrison Keillor and Prairie Home Companion at a young age when she stole her father’s copy of Lake Wobegon Days. Sturgill is an improvisational comic who currently performs in Kansas City with the troupe Babelfish. He too became a fan thanks to his dad. Both Jim and Suzanne have enjoyed seeing Prairie Home Companion live and love listening to it on KCUR. Neither live in Prairie Village.
Westport Center for the Arts was founded in 2006 to support community artists and the arts. In addition to the visual art exhibits, WCA presents Readers Theater, monthly Brown Bag Concerts and a foreign film series.
