Get Us Out of These Boxes: A Zoom Christmas Carol at Kansas City Actors Theatre

Kansas City Actors Theatre will present an original online play, "Get Us Out of These Boxes: A Zoom Christmas Carol," written by KCAT company member Darren Sextro. This is a one-time-only event in support of Kansas City Actors Theatre and the recently-launched Kansas City Actors Radio Theatre. The play will stream live online to ticket-holders on DECEMBER 19th at 7:30 pm.

The show promises to be a fun, virtual comedy in the tradition of behind-the-scenes farces like "Noises Off." Set in the online rehearsal session of a fictional regional theatre company as they endeavor to put something - anything - up for their audience in the 2020 Holiday season, things quickly go awry in a series of procedural hang-ups, personal histories, artistic intentions, and the limitations of connecting online. Performing script in hand, the cast includes John Rensenhouse, Nedra Dixon, JANRogge, Victor Raider-Wexler, Cinnamon Schultz, Hillary Clemens, Matt Schwader, Jerry Mañan, Walter Coppage, Shawna Peña-Downing, and an unnamed special guest star under the direction of Gary Heisserer.

"I was inspired by nine months spent staring at boxes on video conference calls," says the plays' author and Kansas City Actors Theatre president Darren Sextro. "It only seemed appropriate to set a rehearsal within those boxes. I imagined something like that could feel like a theatre company's board meeting. And I wanted to reflect the personalities of the many artists with whom I work so closely, and now in video boxes, at KCAT. So the play is about a theatre company (not KCAT) and a bunch of actors (not literally the actors in this play) trying to have a rehearsal in a still-disorienting environment: Zoom."

This performance is part of a four-part virtual gala fundraiser series Kansas City Actors Theatre has organized to replace their annual fundraiser, the Brouhaha, which was originally planned for early NOVEMBER but was cancelled due to COVID-19. Previous events in the virtual series included a virtual wine tasting with Cellar Rat Wine Merchants in OCTOBER, and a virtual cooking class and home-delivered dinner with Lon Lane's Inspired Occasions earlier this month. The final event in the series will be a virtual cocktail party with Tom's Town Distillery and artist round-table in JANUARY.

Proceeds from the fundraising series, including the performance of "Get Us Out of These Boxes," will support the ongoing operation of Kansas City Actors Theatre and Kansas City Actors Radio Theatre (KCART). KCART debuted in OCTOBER as a free radio program featuring new audio productions of classic and original radio scripts performed by well-known local actors. KCART can be heard Fridays at noon on KKFI 90.1 FM Community Radio, and online at kcactors.org.

"Get Us Out of These Boxes: A Zoom Christmas Carol" is set to perform online one time only at 7:30 pm on Saturday, DECEMBER 19th. Access can be purchased and information can be found online at kcactors.org/brouhaha2020.