It’s hard to imagine a more apt time to be reviving West Side Story. For not only does 2018 mark the birth-centenaries of composer Leonard Bernstein and choreographer Jerome Robbins, whose contributions to this revolutionary work helped redefine American musical theater, but the themes of this path-forging “choreographed musical” are as relevant today as they were […]

If you haven’t heard of Open Spaces yet, chances are you’ll be getting an earful in the coming weeks. This sprawling, nine-week celebration of the visual and performing arts, which runs from August 25th to October 28th, will be dominating the city’s cultural scene this Fall with dozens of exhibits around Town (showing the work of […]

At least once a year, some enterprising Kansas Citian comes up with an idea for an arts organization that has us slapping our foreheads saying, Why didn’t we think of that? Our Town has certainly seen no shortage of visiting early-music groups (thanks to the efforts of several well-established arts presenters), and smaller groups have […]

When Anthony Krutzkamp and Logan Pachciarz welcomed the audience to the Kansas City Dance Festival’s inaugural performance in June 2013, some doubted that such an endeavor could thrive in KC’s previously uneventful summer months. But these two former Kansas City Ballet dancers made it crystal-clear that KCDF was here to stay. “In our first curtain […]

When stories linger in our collective imagination for thousands of years, told and retold in ever-evolving versions, it’s generally because they’ve touched a nerve. In theater, tales from myth and historical antiquity continue to crop up largely because writers find they contain ever-current truths about the human condition. From Jean Anouilh’s Antigone to Cole Porter’s […]

If you think you’re up-to-date about music in Kansas City but have ignored the world of the pipe organ, you aren’t really seeing the whole picture. Our city now boasts three of the most prominent pipe organs in the country (those at the Community of Christ Auditorium and Temple in Independence, and the new Casavant […]

It’s such common fodder for literature, stage and screen that it’s become almost cliché: two people who spend so much time exchanging verbal barbs that eventually their cohorts have to step in and help them realize they’re “made for each other.” From Pride and Prejudice to Bridget Jones’s Diary (not to mention Leia and Han, or […]

It’s largely by coincidence that the Kansas City Women’s Chorus and the Heartland Men’s Chorus have scheduled their Summer Concerts on adjacent weekends. But it’s win-win for Kansas Citians who care about the intersection of music and social justice: Each of these programs addresses broader issues that can often only be expressed through music. On […]

Is opera music, or is it theater? That the best answer to that question is “yes” is part of what makes this art form so intriguing: The struggle over whether “la musica” or “la parola” (the word) should prevail in opera has raged since its inception around 1600. As I watched the Lyric Opera’s production […]