As Autumn approaches, a handpicked lineup of productions not to be missed awaits, from powerhouse performances to must-see premieres. From theater to music to dance, these selections promise to make this season one to remember.
*
SEPTEMBER
September 17-26: KC Melting Pot Theatre; Jitney; August Wilson’s classic is the seventh of the 10 plays constituting the author’s “Pittsburgh Cycle”—a magnum opus that also includes Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, and Fences. Melting Pot Artistic Director of Operations Melonnie Walker, who is also a board member of the prestigious August Wilson Society in Washington, D.C., directs. These works, which address the lives and challenges of Black Americans through the span of the 20th century, have become an essential part of the American canon; Just Off Broadway Theatre. Contact: 816-226-8087 or kcmeltingpot.com.
September 19: Friends of Chamber Music; American Landscapes; This ingenious program celebrates musical America with an early work by the teenaged Samuel Barber (the Serenade, Op. 1); one of the great American chamber works “which happens to be by a woman” (Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor); and Antonín Dvořák’s peerless homage to the country he fell in love with on his first visit to the United States (the “American” Quintet); Folly Theater. Contact: 816-766-1096 or chambermusic.org.
September 19-20 and November 21-22: newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble; Images of America; Kansas City’s premiere new-music group embarks on a celebration of America’s 250th with the first two of a four-program series devoted to aspects of our history, as told through music by a variety of living composers; it begins in September with Carlos Simon’s Grammy Award-nominated Requiem for the Enslaved, an essential work employing spirituals, liturgical melodies, and classical elements to explore slavery and its legacy. The program also includes Shawn Okpebholo’s Redlin[ing].
The newEar season continues in November with in a dark blue night featuring Alex Weiser’s five settings of Yiddish poetry by newly arrived immigrants in the late 19th century; Requiem for the Enslaved is at 515 Music Hub (515 Southwest Boulevard); for in a dark blue night, All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church (November 21st) and New Reform Temple (November 22nd). Contact: newear.org.
September 19-27: Lyric Opera of Kansas City; La Bohème; Gabriella Reyes, one of the most important sopranos active today, is the guileless Mimì, and Argentinian tenor Jose Simerilla Romero is the lovestruck Rodolfo, in Garnett Bruce’s production of the one Puccini opera that almost no one can get through without shedding a tear or two; Christopher Allen conducts, and the set designs are by R. Keith Brumley; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-471-7344 or kcopera.org.
*
OCTOBER
October 2-4: Starlight Theatre; Beetlejuice: The Musical; The press was skittish when this Tim Burton-inspired musical came to Broadway in 2019, but the adaptation (by Scott Brown, Anthony King, and Eddie Perfect) was nominated for eight Tony Awards and became a fan favorite by young audiences who imbued it with their own relevance through TikTok, cosplay, and audience participation; Starlight Theatre. Contact: 816-363-7827 or kcstarlight.com.
October 4 & 6: Kansas City Chorale and Te Deum; Gretchaninov: Passion Week; This remarkable collaboration of Kansas City’s top professional choirs harkens back to the Chorale’s Grammy Award-winning 2007 recording of the work (though with a different choir), which brought renewed international attention to this early-20th-century masterpiece); it is sure to be a musical highlight of the season; Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (October 4th) and Village Presbyterian Church (October 6th). Contact: te-deum.org or kcchorale.org.
October 9: Harriman-Jewell Series: Alisa Weilerstein, cello, and Inon Barnatan, piano, in Duo Recital; One of the foremost living cellists (and winner of a 2011 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship) teams with a renowned pianist and frequent collaborator with whom she has recorded the complete Beethoven Cello Sonatas; Folly Theater. Contact: 816-415-5025 or hjseries.org.
October 10-11: Spire Chamber Ensemble; Ring in a Thousand Years of Peace; This exquisite choir and its founding director, Ben A. Spalding, invite you to a contemplative world in which the centerpiece is Jonathan Dove’s milestone, The Passing of the Year; the reflective program also includes music of Brahms, Eric Whitacre, Henk Badings, and Dale Trumbore: toward weaving a tapestry that invites audiences “to find in music the quiet promise of peace across generations”; Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral (October 10th) and Grace Cathedral, Topeka (October 11th). Contact: spirechamberensemble.org.
October 23-November 1: Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre; Angels in America: Part One—Millennium Approaches; Tony Kushner’s two-part epic, set against the backdrop of Reagan’s American and the AIDS crisis, is one of the most powerful masterworks of American theater. Illness, politics, identity, illness, spirituality, and love are the focus, all treated with depth, humanity, and heartbreakingly “real” characters; Karen Paisley directs the MET’s ambitious undertaking, with Part Two—Perestroika planned for March 2027; Warwick Theatre. Contact: 816-569-3226 or metkc.org.
October 23: Midwest Trust Center at JCCC: Outlander in Concert; As the Outlander series comes to a conclusion this year, Emmy Award-winning composer Bear McCreary caps this unique cultural phenomenon with a symphonic experience that is both concert and show—a multi-media thrill featuring excerpts of the original score and highlights from the show, projected onto a cinema-sized screen; Midwest Trust Center, Johnson County Community College. Contact: 913-469-4445 or jccc.edu/midwest-trust-center.
October 30-November 8: Spinning Tree Theatre; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; Spinning Tree has been doing such innovative work recently that we feel confident that its young artists will not shy from the larger life lessons in Stephen Sondheim’s gory tale of a barber whose shaves are a tad too close; Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center. Contact: spinningtreetheatre.com.
*
NOVEMBER
November 1: William Baker Festival Singers: Songs of Revelation; In its 29th season, this sharply focused choir reveals facets of the “spiritual” through an engaging range of works from the 16th to the 21st centuries by Orlando di Lasso, Johannes Brahms, Adolphus Hailstork, and Douglas Helvering; and contemporary spirituals and gospel songs in settings by Gail Kubik, Roland Carter, Sean Sweeden, and others; St Mary’s Episcopal Church. Contact: festivalsingers.org.
November 13: Bach Aria Soloists; In Her Own Words: BAS with guest actor Cinnamon Schultz Paulette; Music of Hildegard von Bingen, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Clara Schumann, Francesca Caccini, Lili Boulanger, and Reena Esmail is paired with dramatic readings from the composers’ own writings; Truman Forum Auditorium, Kansas City Public Library, Plaza Branch; Contact: bachariasoloists.com.
November 20-22: Kansas City Symphony: Brahms’ A German Requiem; Music Director Matthias Pintscher conducts this concert dedicated to mourning, loss, and triumph over impossible obstacles, with soprano Sophia Burgos and bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams; the program juxtaposes a masterpiece of 19th-century choral music with Schoenberg’s harrowing A Survivor from Warsaw, opening with contemporary composer Olga Neuwirth’s Tombeau I; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-471-0400 or kcsymphony.org.
*
DECEMBER
December 9-27: Unicorn Theatre; Anti-Hero: Revenge of the Sw*fties; Fourteen-year-old Cora harasses a prominent music critic and his family until he agrees to change his scathing review of an (unnamed) Country-turned-pop-star’s latest and most controversial record. Derick Edgren Otero’s fresh and witty play, originally written as a master’s thesis at the University of Iowa, is receiving its world premiere through the New Play Exchange; Unicorn Theatre. Contact: 816-531-7529 or unicorntheatre.org.
December 12-13: Owen/Cox Dance Group: The Nutcracker and the Mouse King; With kinetically charged ballet steps and a hyperactive, jazz-infused version of Tchaikovsky’s score, the company’s iconoclastic version of the holiday classic gets more audacious every time it is revived; it is presented in partnership with The People’s Liberation Big Band, Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey, and Midwest Trust Center at JCCC. Contact: owencoxdance.org.
