Having a hard time deciding which Kansas City performing arts events to put on your spring calendar? Try our carefully selected list of music, theater, and dance productions that you are sure to find provocative, fun, unusual, and even exhilarating.
FEBRUARY
February 12: Bach Aria Soloists; Bach Aria Soloists Welcome Horn Virtuoso Chris Komer; Kansas native Chris Komer and BAS Founding Director Elizabeth Suh Lane have been friends since they performed together at the Tanglewood Festival in their youth; currently the principle horn of the New Jersey Symphony, Chris joins this durable ensemble for a program of jazz favorites and two masterworks for French horn: Brahms’ Horn Trio and Schubert’s Auf dem Strom for soprano, horn, and piano; 1900 Building. Contact: bachariasoloists.com.
February 14: Harriman-Jewell Series; Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano, with Time for Three; Kansas City’s beloved musical daughter returns for the Kansas City premiere of Emily – No Prisoner Be, a semi-staged song cycle on Emily Dickinson poetry by Kevin Puts, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of such operas as Silent Night (performed here in February 2015), Elizabeth Cree, and The Hours; the Grammy Award-winning ensemble Time for Three, no stranger to cross-genre projects, is just the right group for the job; Folly Theater. Contact: 816-415-5025 or hjseries.org.
February 14-15: Midwest Trust Center; The Acting Company presents Great Expectations; Since it was founded in 1972 by John Houseman and Margot Harley, The Acting Company has remained the primary touring company for professional theater in the United States; it brings Nikki Massoud’s new stage adaptation of Dickens’ quintessential rags-to-riches story (February 14th) and if you miss that, they’ll perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream the following night (February 15th); Midwest Trust Center. Contact: 913-469-4445 or jccc.edu/midwest-trust-center.
February 28-March 9: Lyric Opera of Kansas City; The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess; It’s the 1930s and opposites attract on sultry Catfish Row, a lively neighborhood of Charleston, South Carolina, and on nearby Kittiwah Island; Lyric Opera favorite Francesca Zambello directs this production of one of the 20th century’s most powerful operas, with a star-studded cast (Eric Greene is Porgy, Michelle Bradley is Bess) and conductor Michael Ellis Ingram; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-471-7344 or kcopera.org.
MARCH
March 4: Kansas City Actors Theatre; Everybody; Kansas City’s most forthright theater company closes its 21st season with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ adaptation of the 15th-century morality play Everyman; each night, the actor who is to play the lead role is chosen by lottery—and thus each performance is distinctly different. Vanessa Severo directs, and the cast includes Teisha M. Bankston, Elaine Elizabeth Clifford, Dri Hernaez, Mateo Moreno, John Rensenhouse, Cinnamon Schultz, Julie Shaw, and R.H. Wilhoit; H&R Block City Stage Theatre at Union Station Kansas City. Contact: kcactors.org.
March 13-14: Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey and Harriman-Jewell Series; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; The spring tour of America’s most consistently fascinating dance company includes a Harriman-Jewell performance on March 13th and two performances (matinee and evening) for the KC Friends of Alvin Ailey on March 14th; it is Kansas City’s first glimpse at the company under Artistic Director Alicia Graf Mack, a former Ailey principal dancer who is ready to take the company into an adventurous future; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-415-5025 or hjseries.org (for March 13th) or kcfaa.org (for March 14th).
March 17-22: PNC Broadway in Kansas City: The Great Gatsby; The latest adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel is a musical (naturally), with music and lyrics by Jason Howland and Nathan Tysen and a book by Kait Kerrigan; when it opened on Broadway in April 2024 The New York Times called it “a lot of Jazz Age fun”; Kansas City Music Hall. Contact: americantheatreguild.com/kansascity.
March 20-29: Kansas City Ballet: Stars and Stripes; The company salutes the nation’s 250th birthday with Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes and Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo, the latter with Aaron Copland’s peerless score; just as intriguing is a world premiere by choreographer Caili Quan, whose sensational Two More Minutes this fall was one of the best pieces the New Dance Partners has ever curated; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-931-8993 or kcballet.org.
March 27: Owen/Cox Dance Group with St. Petersburg String Quartet: Chiaroscuro: Studies in Light and Darkness; Any new work by Jennifer Owen is an exciting addition to Kansas City’s dance season, and this spring the company invites one of the Midwest’s most experienced string ensembles to perform alongside them—seasoned choreography and music of Shostakovich, Ravel, and Brad Cox; H&R Block City Stage Theatre at Union Station Kansas City. Contact: owencoxdance.org.
APRIL
April 4: Kauffman Center Presents; Pat Metheny, Side-Eye III+; The international guitar phenomenon, who in 2025 marked 50 years on the jazz scene, was born in Kansas City and went on to form a distinctive trademark style—grounded in tradition but free and inventive in conception; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-994-7222 or kauffmancenter.org.
April 11: Kansas City Jazz Orchestra; KCJO Plays Benny Goodman Live at Carnegie Hall, featuring Anat Cohen; Kansas City’s remarkable “resident jazz ensemble” invites clarinetist Anat Cohen to revisit a historic moment in jazz history: January 16, 1938, when Benny Goodman dared to bring “Radical Swing” into hallowed Carnegie Hall, altering the public view of jazz forever; the program is presented in memory of Donald J. Hall; Folly Theater. Contact: kcjo.org.
April 12: Opus 76; The Razumovsky, The Emperor, & The American Dream; This unusually titled program by Kansas City’s most accomplished string quartet includes well-known masterworks of the genre, including Beethoven’s F-major Quartet (Op. 59, No. 1, the first of the “Razumovsky” Quartets) and Haydn’s “Emperor” Quartet; Shawnee Mission South High School. Contact: opus76.org.
April 17-19: Kansas City Symphony; Farrenc, Schumann, and Dvořák; Any time Stefan Jackiw plays, you sit up and listen; he is, for me, the most soulful, joyful, thought-provoking violinist of his generation. Kansas City music lovers have followed his career almost from its beginnings; on this visit he’ll play the Dvořák Violin Concerto with guest conductor Louis Langrée, who was music director of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival for more than 20 years; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-471-0400 or kcsymphony.org.
April 17-26: Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City, Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, and Unicorn Theatre; The African Company Presents Richard III; Carlyle Brown’s award-winning play presents the real-life saga of a company formed during slavery specifically to present all-Black productions of the Bard’s classics; co-directed by BRTKC’s Damron Russel Armstrong and HASF’s Sidonie Garrett, this “play within a play” is a backdrop to a gripping drama about a pivotal moment in history; Jerome Stage at Unicorn Theatre. Contact: BRTKC at 816-832-1269 or brtkc.org.
April 17-26: Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre; The Shawshank Redemption; This weirdly popular “buddy movie,” based on a Stephen King novella, has been adapted for the stage by Owen O’Neill and Dave Johns; it is an intense piece of theater for two dedicated actors who lay their souls on the bare floor, sometimes literally; Warwick Theatre. Contact: 816-569-3226 or metkc.org.
MAY
May 15-16: Kansas City Women’s Chorus; 25th Anniversary at the Gem Theater; The longevity of choirs such as this is a testament to the personal devotion of these singers and their leaders, but also to the consistently warm support that Kansas City has offered to dozens of choruses over the years; supported by the Kansas City, Missouri, Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund; Gem Theater. Contact: kcwomenschorus.org.
May 23-24: Te Deum; Remembrance and Comfort; Any performance of a major work by the Scottish composer James MacMillan is an “event”; he is one of the prophetic musical voices of our day, and one of the greatest choral composers of the last century; Te Deum and director Matthew Shepard will perform his Tenebrae Responsories, on a program that also includes music of loss by Herbert Howells (Requiem) and Hubert Parry (Songs of Farewell); Village Presbyterian Church (May 23rd) and St. Mary’s Episcopal Church (May 24th). Contact: te-deum.org.
—BY PAUL HORSLEY
