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Readers, welcome to the Autumn Spotlight! Paul Horsley’s distinguished career is rooted in a lifelong passion for both music and the written word. He studied piano and musicology at Wichita State University and earned advanced degrees, including a master’s and PhD, from Cornell University. His love for the arts naturally expanded into journalism, which he pursued with equal vigor, using his writing to bring the arts to life for readers. Paul taught musicology at Cornell, LSU, and Park University before serving as program annotator for the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 2000, he joined The Kansas City Star’s arts desk, and since 2008, he has shaped the performing arts coverage at The Independent, where his thoughtful, insightful writing has become essential reading. 

In addition to his editorial role, Paul has earned widespread recognition for his contributions to arts journalism. His accolades include the Kansas City Musical Club’s 2025 Annual Award for outstanding cultural contributions, as well as grants and fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the New York Times/NEA Dance Critics Institute, and the Newberry Library. With his revitalized performance column, “Autumn Spotlight,” Paul curates a selective yet compelling list of Kansas City’s best music, theater, and dance. His selections champion boundary-pushing performers, local premieres, and works that resonate deeply within him—offering our readers not only a guide to the season but a personal invitation into the transformative world of the arts. 

SEPTEMBER

September 5: International Center for Music at Park University; Carr-Petrova Duo: HERS; Molly Carr is a concert violist and the newest member of the Juilliard String Quartet; Anna Petrova is an award-winning pianist. The Carr-Petrova Duo makes its local debut with a concert of works for viola and piano entirely by women. HERS celebrates the strength and resilience of women in classical music through the ages, with music by Florence Price, Clara Schumann, Vivian Fung, Amy Beach, Andrea Casarrubios, Rebecca Clarke, and yes, Beyoncé (an arrangement of “Halo”); 1900 Building. Contact: icm.park.edu.

September 14: Friends of Chamber Music; Beethoven: Complete Sonatas for Piano and Cello; The cello sonata is the one area of Beethoven’s music in which you can hear his entire output for one genre in a single afternoon. And all three of the composer’s storied “style periods” are represented here: The early sonatas (Op. 5) are fleet and precipitous, the A-major Sonata (Op. 69) lies firmly in the composer’s confident middle period, and the buoyant, transformative sonatas of Op. 102 were written with eyes fixed on the beyond. This recital by Hyeyeon Park and Dmitri Atapine, which opens the Friends’ 50th anniversary season, will remind music lovers how fortunate Kansas City is to have these two capital artists in our midst; Folly Theater. Contact: 816-766-1096 or chambermusic.org. 

September 16-October 12: Coterie Theatre; A Wrinkle in Time; In the great succession of literary girl heroines, from Elizabeth Bennet to Jo March, Nancy Drew to Hermione Granger, few have been called upon literally to save humanity; Madeleine L’Engle’s Meg Murray, in her attempts to rescue her father from dark forces, struggles against great cosmic evils like few before her. Playwright Morgan Gould has created a new adaptation of the award-winning Young Adult (YA) science-fiction novel, first published in 1962; Coterie Theatre, Crown Center of Kansas City. Contact: Contact: 816-474-6552 or thecoterie.org.

September 19-20: Midwest Trust Center; New Dance Partners: The Ultimate Collaboration; Four choreographers are paired with four regional dance companies each year for new works of choreography, several of which have subsequently become classics. This year Kansas City Ballet is joined with Kansas City-based Caroline Dahm, Owen/Cox Dance Group works with rising star Caili Quan, Regina Klenjoski Dance Company (founded in 1999 in Torrance, California and now based primarily in Wichita) creates the work of Jessi Stegall, and Störling Dance Theater collaborates with Lebanese-born choreographer Dolly Steir; Yardley Hall. Contact: 913-469-4445 or jccc.edu/midwest-trust-center. 

September 26 & October 3: KC VITAs; Kaleidoscope; This young choral group, under the direction of Jackson Thomas, prides itself on performing only newly commissioned music; it also has explored unique combinations of the musical and the visual. In this program, the new works are paired with art by visual artists, which is jettisoned into the celestial realm by the stellar spectacle that only a planetarium can deliver; Arvin Gottlieb Planetarium, Union Station Kansas City. Contact: kcvitas.org. 

September 27-28: Te Deum; Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil; This a cappella milestone from 1915 is not only one of Rachmaninoff’s greatest works but also one of the most significant musical compositions of the Russian Orthodox tradition; it sets six of fifteen texts from the Orthodox vespers service and features a delightful variety of mesmerizing chant, choral polyphony, and other effects. The superb 17-year-old choir, one of the Midwest’s finest, is led by Founding Director Matthew Shepard; Village Presbyterian Church (September 27th) and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (September 28th). Contact: te-deum.org. 

September 27-October 5: Lyric Opera of Kansas City; Cinderella; Kindness and love win out over jealousy and greed in Rossini’s retelling of the Cinderella tale, one of the most busily virtuosic bel canto operas ever. For the title role, the Lyric presents South African mezzo-soprano Siphokazi Molteno, widely regarded as one of the most significant voices in opera, and tenor Jack Swanson as her Prince (aka Don Ramiro); with scenic designs by our own internationally acclaimed designer Steven Kemp; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-471-7344 or kcopera.org.

OCTOBER

October 4: Folly Jazz Series; The Pete Escovedo 90th Birthday Celebration Featuring: Pete Escovedo and His Orchestra; The charismatic Latin jazz percussionist, who turned 90 this year, cites the legendary Tito Puente as an inspiration, but he and his orchestra have also brought smooth jazz, r&b, salsa, and funk into the mix. Throughout his 50-year career Pete has toured with Santana, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, and his daughter, Sheila E.; he is truly one of a kind; Folly Theater. Contact: 816-474-4444 or follytheater.org. 

October 14-November 2: Kansas City Repertory Theatre; Dracula; Kansas City’s own Vanessa Severo, in collaboration with Joanie Schultz, has created a daring adaptation that reimagines some of the more problematic aspects of the original (women as docile, helpless victims), emphasizing universal truths about addiction and obsession. Each of the main characters in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula “feels trapped by society in some way,” Joanie has written, “and has a secret or a vice that allows them to release the pressure or express their truth”; Copaken Stage. Contact: 816-235-2700 or kcrep.org. 

October 30: Kauffman Center Presents; PlayStation: The Concert; The relatively new genre of music for video games today attracts some of the world’s most prominent composers and as of 2023 it even has its own Grammy Award category; this concert experience combines the bold visuals of gaming, projected on a gigantic scale, with soundtracks from God of War, The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, Journey, Uncharted, Helldivers, Astro Bot and Bloodborne—all performed live by an ensemble of international performing artists; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-994-7222 or kauffmancenter.org. 

October 31-November 2: Kansas City Symphony; Rachmaninoff Celebration: Part 1;The world recently marked the 150th birthday of the brilliantly morose Russian-American composer; the Symphony joins the fray this season with two Classical Series concert sets—beginning with a program of the Concerto No. 2 (the greatest piano concerto of the 20th century?) and the resounding choral-orchestral masterpiece, The Bells; with pianist George Li and the Symphony Chorus; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-471-0400 or kcsymphony.org. 

NOVEMBER 

November 1-9: Spinning Tree Theater; Carrie: The Musical; The original team for the 1988 musical, which The New York Times declared “one of the gaudiest disasters in Broadway history,” created a rigorous reworking of the piece in 2012; the result is a more palatable version of the Stephen King adaptation—and a more viable one. With music is by Michael Gore, lyrics by Dean Pitchford, and book by Lawrence D. Cohen, the play now focuses less on gore and more on themes of isolation, bullying, religious extremism, and coping mechanisms for young people; Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center. Contact: spinningtreetheatre.com. 

November 18-23: PNC Broadway in Kansas City; & Juliet; The much-discussed new take on Shakespeare imagines what might happen if Juliet were to survive and get a second chance; Jesse Green of The New York Times, who has normally shown little patience for “jukebox musicals,” actually liked this one. But I disagree with his comment that the songs “are neither here nor there”: in fact the music is perhaps the main reason people are loving this meandering story. These songs of Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, and Demi Lovato (many written by the celebrated Max Martin) are among the best pop songs of our generation, and one could hardly fail with live versions of these—complete with music-video-level singing and incredible dancing by the gifted cast; Kansas City Music Hall. Contact: americantheatreguild.com/kansascity. 

November 21-30: Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City; Jaja’s African Hair Braiding; This bracingly fresh new comedy by Jocelyn Bioh (School Girls, or: The African Mean Girls Play) received its Broadway premiere in 2023 and was nominated for five Tony Awards—winning the award for Best Costume Design of a Play; it takes place in a sweltering salon in Harlem, where a lively group of West African immigrants dream of an American future while creating hair art and confronting green card drama; location TBA. Contact: brtkc.org. 

DECEMBER

December 2: Harriman-Jewell Series; Yo-Yo Ma, Cello, in Solo Recital; This rare solo performance by the great American artist—seated alone on the Helzberg stage, filling the hall with sonority without the aid of orchestra, chamber ensemble, or even piano—features three of Bach’s Cello Suites juxtaposed with Summer in the High Grassland by Chinese composer Zhao Jiping, the Allegretto from A. A. Saygun’s Partita, Op. 31, and the Sonata for Solo Cello by the American original George Crumb; Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-415-5025 or hjseries.org. 

December 3-28: The Living Room; Milking Christmas; The great actor-director-producer Rusty Sneary returns to Kansas City in a blaze of unconventional holiday glory, with this upside-down Hallmark Movie-like satire (by Ben Auxier, Brian Huther, Seth Macchi and Ryan McCall) in which the very future of Christmas itself hangs in the balance; Rusty himself directs this revival of a piece that was first performed here in December 2017 and has been talked about ever since; with original cast member Elise Poehling as Macey Maid-a-Milking; MTH Theater at Crown Center. Contact: thelivingroomkc.com. 

December 23: Spire Chamber Ensemble; Handel’s Messiah by Candlelight; In a slight departure from its usual buttoned-down Messiah, the Spire Ensemble and Founder/Artistic Director Ben Spalding go for a less formal approach this year, with candlelight and (of course) historical instruments, partly toward replicating an 18th-century concert experience; the soloists will be drawn from the choir’s plethora of extraordinary singers; Folly Theater. Contact: spirechamberensemble.org. 

—By Paul Horsley

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send an email to paul@kcindependent.com or find him on Facebook (paul.horsley.501) or X/Instagram (@phorsleycritic). 

Display photo of Yo-Yo Ma by Austin Mann