BWW Preview: Spinning Tree Theatre Announces 2015 - 2016 Season

Spinning Tree Theatre in Kansas City announced their 2015-2016 season schedule, which includes two plays and two musicals. The season will premiere Spinning Trees first dance musical. Venues and dates for the 2015-2016 season are to be announced later. The production company is currently searching for a permanent home, after four years of renting venues in the Kansas City area.

With an all-local cast, Spinning Tree Theatre will produce West Side Story, with book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, reproducing the original Jerome Robbins choreography. Andy Parkhurst and Michael Grayman, founders of Spinning Tree, have a combined nine professional productions, including the 40th anniversary Broadway tour of West Side Story supervised by Robbins and Laurents.

Adapted for the novel of Henry James, The Turn of the Screw by Jeffrey Hatcher is a Kansas City Premiere. Are ghosts or over-active imaginations haunting the English manor that a young governess travels to care for two recently orphaned children. Variety says, "The Turn of the Screw is a story with ghosts, which is not the same thing as a ghost story." The New York Times says, "A dazzling act of the imagination."

13, with music and lyrics by Robert Brown, is a Kansas City Professional Premiere. Evan Goldman just moved from New York City to small-town Indiana and has to deal with his parents' divorce and his Bar Mitzvah, all while navigating the complicated social circles of a new school. The explosive and heartwarming evening of song and dance features 13 of Kansas City's teenage stars-to-be.

Amadeus by Peter Shaffer completes the list of productions presented by Spinning Tree Theatre for 2015-2016. The play explores a fictionalized interpretation of the lives of Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The play premiered on Broadway in 1980 with Ian McKellen as Salieri and Tim Curry as Mozart. Amadeus won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1981. Amadeus will feature a large cast of local actors. Photo of Andrew Parkhurst and Michael Grayman courtesy of Spinning Tree Theatre.