Review: ANASTASIA THE MUSICAL at Theatre In The Park
by Alan Portner - June 18, 2024
Second show this spring at the Shawnee Mission Park Theatre In The Park, is ANASTASIA, a 2017 fairy tale based on a wished-for result concerning the Russian Grand Duchess Anatasia. This, in turn, was based on an earlier 1997 animated film and an even earlier imagining in a 1956 film.
ANASTASIA the ...
Review: PORGY AND BESS at Music Theater Heritage
by Alan Portner - June 10, 2024
Now playing in the Grand Theater at Crown Center is Music Theater Heritage’s production of Gershwin’s “PORGY AND BESS.” This is an example of MTH going “all in” on a very challenging show and producing an extremely credible final product. ...
Review: THE LEHMAN TRILOGY at Kansas City Actors Theatre
by Alan Portner - May 26, 2024
The Lehman Trilogy studies American Dream Mythology as seen through the eyes of Italian playwright and poet Stefano Massini. The English translation by Ben Power transfigures itself into an absorbing and poignant exercise in stellar storytelling as one might imagine it by three brothers around a met...
Review: HOT THE MUSICAL at Unicorn Theatre
by Alan Portner - May 17, 2024
In performance now through June 2 is HOT THE MUSICAL, an entertaining and original new take on the Greek Mythology surrounding Helen of Troy and the Trojan Wars. The show is staged at Unicorn Theatre on Main Street. This one is definitely worth your time....
Review: MJ THE MUSICAL at KC Music Hall
by Alan Portner - May 08, 2024
Michael is Roman Banks with a spot-on almost miraculous personification of the Ing of Pop. The dancing, the voice, the persona. They are all there. Banks offers a remarkable performance. ...
Review: SQUABBLES at New Theatre Restaurant
by Alan Portner - May 05, 2024
For those of you who feel the need for a light, fun evening of laugh out loud comedy and a delightful meal, let me recommend “SQUABBLES” a live comedy play that has Just opened at New Theatre Restaurant in Overland Park. “SQUABBLES” is a light comedy with an unusually tight and experienced cast fea...
Review: ROCKY THE MUSICAL at MTKC Pro
by Alan Portner - April 15, 2024
The Music Theatre Kansas City – (Pro) KC Premiere production of the 2014’s Broadway version of “Rocky the Musical” is surprisingly worth your time. It is hard to have avoided Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky Franchise” beginning as a sleeper, low budget film hit in 1976. So far there have been six “Roc...
Review: STRANGER SINGS, THE PARODY MUSICAL at The Black Box
by Steve Wilson - April 07, 2024
But on the upside, there is always Hawkins, Indiana, nothing strange ever happens there. Unless you are in the upside/down and Hawkins is inside The Black Box, for Padgett Productions' phenomenal Kansas City premiere of STRANGER SINGS, THE PARODY MUSICAL....
Review: CLUE at Kauffman Center
by Alan Portner - April 04, 2024
Three quarters of a century following its first North American game release, a top-quality touring play version of “Clue, A New Comedy” has appeared set in a mansion located in suburban Washington, D.C. At the risk of sounding like a bad horror novel or even worse “B” movie, all the action takes p...