Alan Portner - Page 8

Kansas City Repertory Theatre opens its 2019-2020 season with an ambitious production of a difficult, intense, family drama by Tennessee Williams, one of the twentieth century's most renowned talents. a?oeCata?? won a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1955 and is said to have been Williams' favorite.

Former Navy corpsman Bud McNamara (Gary Neal Johnson) lies sleeping in the hospital bed. Amanda Kalowsky (Jen Mays), a hospital volunteer, has agreed to comfort patients who are alone and terminal. This is the basic setup to Victor Wishna's new play, a?oeDNA,a?? now enjoying its world premiere at The Living Room Theatre. a?oeDNAa?? is a dark comedy told in four scenes with a twist in the final stanza.

Playing this weekend only at Starlight Theatre is the traveling version of the very successful a?oeCirque Dreams a?' Jungle Fantasy.a?? a?oeCirque Dreamsa?? is a family friendly, modern, circus production and was greeted with thunderous applause and warm approval from an almost full amphitheater. There can be nothing but praise for the wide menu of gymnasts, aerialists, jugglers, contortionists, and balance specialists.

This very week, eighty years ago, preview showings of the film a?oeThe Wizard of Oza?? opened on silver screens in Wisconsin and Massachusetts. Audiences were wowed. The new a?oeTheatre In The Parka?? production of Dorothy and Toto's big adventure is every bit as spectacular and fun as the 1939 filmed version.

'A Bronx Tale,' playing this week at Starlight Theatre, is one of those hidden gems of a show that enjoyed a fairly limited Broadway run. And because the Broadway run ended last fall after 700 performances (for now), a good portion of the New York cast has signed up for the touring company and are performing for Kansas City audiences. These folks obviously love this show. It shows in the performance.

Leawood Stage Company, the mainly city supported suburban, community theater program under the Leawood (KS) Park and Recreation District operates in several city controlled locations including the outdoor Ironwoods Amphitheatre. The current production, Cole Porter's "Kiss Me Kate," opened this past weekend and will be performed through July 20 at 8:00 p.m. nightly. Leawood City has provided everything needed to put on a great show. Tickets are free.

Meredith Willson's 'Music Man' at 'Theatre In The Park' could not be a more iconic community theater rendition of early twentieth century Iowa and Americana unless the entire forty-six member cast entered by running through a framed newsprint mock-up of Grant Wood's 'American Gothic.'   As a matter of fact, the couple from Grant Wood's painting (complete with pitchfork) show up in the opening scene.  

A superb touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's classical-dance-musical opera 'Cats' from 1982 opened Tuesday evening at Starlight Theatre inside Swope Park for a week long run. 'Cats' unlike many touring shows makes maximum use of its huge venue and the stage possibilities made available through it.

Jukebox musicals have become a too dominant form both on Broadway and for its touring cousins. The music is familiar and audiences flock to relive old favorites. "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" playing this week at Starlight Theatre is one of the best of this form. It is very entertaining and works very well on KC's huge, outdoor, crown venue.

The Queen of France, an assassin, and a freed slave woman run into each other at an artist's loft in 1790s Paris. 'The Revolutionists' is a comedy about the serious subject of female subjugation through the centuries.

TTIP's Annie' is a solid, Tim Bair, community theatre production of a show that has inspired thousands of little girls to get up on a stage for the first time and belt 'The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow.'

Starlight Theatre's opening offering for the 2019 summer season 'Rock Of Ages' was the single most disagreeable theatrical experience in more than fifty years spent attending live theater.  The performance of this rude, crude tribute to 1980s rock bands was probably OK, but it was impossible to hear.  Seated directly behind us was a group of ten who competed with the performers with full voice sing-a-longs, continuous hoots-hollars, yelled commentary, hand clapping, and finger snapping.  

For audiences feeling the need for a pleasant, two-hour sojourn into a gentler time, Paul Osborn's 1939 comedy of manners 'Mornings at Seven' at Kansas City Actors Theatre inside Union Station will fill their collective nostalgia voids.  Dennis Hennessy's KCAT production is blessed with nine excellent actors of appropriate age to bring this stylish 1939 play-script to life. 

Toni Stone was the first female to play professional baseball in a major American baseball league and she happened to be African American. Toni played for teams around the country including the fabled Negro League Baseball teams like the Kansas City Monarchs and the unlikely monikered Indianapolis Clowns. She is the subject of a new off-Broadway play by Lydia Diamond opening for previews beginning May 23 at Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre just off Times Square.

The annual ORIGINKC Festival of new plays presented by the Kansas City Repertory Theatre kicked off Friday, May 3 with a baffling yet engrossing piece titled 'Unreliable' by playwright Dipka Guha. 'Unreliable' explores the characters and relationships between three individuals who are initially presented as a female attorney, a man held without formal charge as an enemy combatant, and the attorney's Mother.

Most Midwesterners older than a certain age have heard the name and may even know how young Buddy Holly died.  Some fans know exactly where they were and from whom they heard the news.  Many fewer know much about Buddy's backstory.   That hole in the history in early Rock and Roll is plugged by the new production of "Buddy … The Buddy Holly Story" at New Theater Restaurant in Overland Park now through July 7.

The 20th Anniversary Tour of 'Rent' has roared onto the stage at the Kansas City Music Hall for a week-long residency through Sunday, May 5.  'Rent,' a rock-opera rendering of Puccini's 'La Boheme,' is not easy stuff.   It is musically challenging and sometimes tough to follow, but it is also undeniably powerful and here performed at the highest possible level.

'Forever Plaid,' now playing at Theatre In The Park's indoor facility at the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center, is a very pleasant excuse to spend an evening stepping through a gentle time warp and into an entirely different musical experience.

“Inherit the Wind” is a fictional construction inspired by the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial and as a screed against the “Red Scare” activities of Wisconsin Senator (R) Joseph McCarthy during the early 1950s.

Opening night Kansas City audiences for 'Anastasia the New Broadway Musical' were treated to a tremendously well performed, visually dazzling, homage to the classic musical theater form.