BWW Review: FOUR CHILDREN at Kansas City Actors' TheatreOctober 11, 2021The World Premiere production of “Four Children” has been brought to life by the Kansas City Actors Theatre on the City Stage inside Union Station as a minimalist, sadly shocking view of war against children and on a number of levels. It is not to be missed during its several week run.
The playwright has taken snippets from the diaries of four childhood victims of successful or attempted genocides. Their testimony is woven together paragraph by paragraph into a seamless, searing whole despite each being separated by decades and thousands of miles.
BWW Review: ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE at Starlight TheatreSeptember 22, 2021The final, outdoor, Broadway style show for the 2021 season at Starlight Theatre is Jimmy Buffet’s 2018 juke box musical “Escape to Margaritaville.” If you are a certified Jimmy Buffet fan, otherwise known as a Parrott-head, then this fun evening is absolutely for you.
BWW Review: AN EVENING WITH SIERRA BOGGESS at Musical Theater HeritageSeptember 18, 2021“An evening with Sierra Boggess” at Musical Theater Heritage’s Quixotic Theater is a delightful way to spend any evening. Sierra was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s choice to create the role of Christine in the original production of the “Phantom” sequel “Love Never Dies.” American audiences outside of New York will know her opposite Phantom Ramin Karimloo from the PBS twenty-fifth anniversary concert version of “Phantom.”
BWW Review: LIFESPAN OF A FACT at Unicorn TheatreSeptember 12, 2021Unicorn Theatre Artistic Director Cynthia Levin enthusiastically welcomed a properly vaccinated, masked, and socially distanced audience to the Levin Theater for the first Covid delayed Unicorn production in eighteen months. The play is a dense, but extremely well performed ninety minute one act entitled “The Lifespan of a Fact.”
BWW Review: MOTHER OF THE MAID at Metropolitan Ensemble TheatreSeptember 10, 2021Metropolitan Ensemble Theater (MET) has reopened in an improved, more comfortable, and certainly more serviceable Warwick Theater. The building remains a work in progress, but marching toward an ultimate and stylish rebirth. The opening offering is a delightful, soulful, surprising, enjoyable, well-conceived, well-acted, and well-directed piece of theatrical storytelling in two acts called “Mother of the Maid” by playwright Jane Anderson.
BWW Review: ON YOUR FEET at Starlight Kansas CitySeptember 8, 2021It’s exuberant! It’s tuneful! It will make you want to dance! It is “On Your Feet,” the life story of Gloria and Emilio Estefan and their Miami Sound Machine. It is a happy exit from the lockdowns around the Covid-19 pandemic.
BWW Review: MARY'S WEDDING at Kansas City Repertory TheatreAugust 27, 2021It was their special place; a run-down barn somewhere in a Canadian prairie province. Mary, a UK transplant during the early second decade of the twentieth century, has returned here for a kind of exorcism.
“Mary’s Wedding” is the first Kansas City directorial outing for newly minted Kansas City Repertory Theatre Artistic Director Stuart Carden. This small play, only 90 minutes long with a cast of two by Canadian playwright Stephen Massicotte, marks the reboot of live theater for KC Rep. Because of Covid restrictions, it is being performed outdoors on the tiered lawn fronting the sunken entrance to the National World War I Museum.
BWW Feature: NEW THEATRE REOPENS at New Theatre RestaurantAugust 24, 2021New safety limitations and significant high tech investment at New Theatre Restaurant has allowed dinner theater to return to Overland Park and the Kansas City area. New Theatre Restaurant, one of America’s premiere dinner theater/restaurants, reopened with “The King In Concert,” starring Elvis Presley impersonator Victor Trevino Jr and with Dominique Scott in a reprise of his characterization of Jerry Lee Lewis from last season’s “Million Dollar Quartet.”
ANNIE Brings the Sun Out at White TheatreJuly 15, 2021Now running on the stage of the White Theatre at the Jewish Community Center’s Overland Park campus is a very credible production of 1977’s “Annie.” It is the first new, full, live, Broadway Style indoor production to tread the boards of this very nice auditorium in sixteen months.
BWW Review: DEAD RINGER at Musical Theater HeritageJuly 10, 2021Live Theater has returned to Musical Theater Heritage with the World Premiere production of “Dead Ringer.” Starring in this one man tour de force is Canadian performer and Kansas City favorite Zachary Stevenson.
BWW Review: THE MUSIC OF MOTOWN at MTH (Virtual)January 18, 2021“The Music of Motown” is the third original cabaret show in a series of video streamed entertainments from Musical Theater Heritage in the wake of the great Covid-19 pandemic. Covid has eliminated live audience performances for the time being. Each new iteration becomes a little technically better than the one that preceded it. The music is always fine. This show is one R&B lovers should not miss.
BWW Review: THE SPECTACULAR CHRISTMAS SHOW at Musical Theater HeritageDecember 11, 2020A KC holiday treasures I always enjoy is the “The Spectacular Christmas Show” at Musical Theater Heritage. Covid-19 has forced the “Christmas Show” off the main stage, but it has has been re-incarnated virtually and not lost much on the “Spectacular” scale and lost nothing in musical performance.
BWW Review: BROADWAY'S PRINCE at MTH At Crown CenterNovember 6, 2020MTH’s new virtual Musical Monday “Broadway’s Prince” is a delightful decompression from the all-consuming political drama that engulfs the country. “Broadway’s Prince” is a remembrance of the late, great, Broadway producer and Director Hal Prince. This production is a compendium of sixteen musical numbers from a selection of Prince’s shows sung by some really excellent, locally-based performers.
BWW Review: AN EVENING WITH RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN at Musical Theater HeritageSeptember 1, 2020Fans of Musical Theater Heritage are in for a treat with a new, locally conceived and performed streaming remembrance revue featuring the iconic music of a?oeRodgers and Hammerstein.a??
This MTH production uses parts of the finished scenic design from the Covid cancelled production of a?oeCarousela?? originally scheduled for last spring. It is excellently videoed and sound engineered on the internet Vimeo platform.
BWW Review: AMERICAN SON at Unicorn TheatreMarch 9, 2020AMERICAN SON is a bold, intense, ninety minute study of race and law enforcement in America during the early twenty-first century. How you interpret what you see depends entirely on who you are and your own preconceptions.