Alan Portner - Page 8

A superb touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's classical-dance-musical opera 'Cats' from 1982 opened Tuesday evening at Starlight Theatre inside Swope Park for a week long run. 'Cats' unlike many touring shows makes maximum use of its huge venue and the stage possibilities made available through it.

Jukebox musicals have become a too dominant form both on Broadway and for its touring cousins. The music is familiar and audiences flock to relive old favorites. "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" playing this week at Starlight Theatre is one of the best of this form. It is very entertaining and works very well on KC's huge, outdoor, crown venue.

The Queen of France, an assassin, and a freed slave woman run into each other at an artist's loft in 1790s Paris. 'The Revolutionists' is a comedy about the serious subject of female subjugation through the centuries.

TTIP's Annie' is a solid, Tim Bair, community theatre production of a show that has inspired thousands of little girls to get up on a stage for the first time and belt 'The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow.'

Starlight Theatre's opening offering for the 2019 summer season 'Rock Of Ages' was the single most disagreeable theatrical experience in more than fifty years spent attending live theater.  The performance of this rude, crude tribute to 1980s rock bands was probably OK, but it was impossible to hear.  Seated directly behind us was a group of ten who competed with the performers with full voice sing-a-longs, continuous hoots-hollars, yelled commentary, hand clapping, and finger snapping.  

For audiences feeling the need for a pleasant, two-hour sojourn into a gentler time, Paul Osborn's 1939 comedy of manners 'Mornings at Seven' at Kansas City Actors Theatre inside Union Station will fill their collective nostalgia voids.  Dennis Hennessy's KCAT production is blessed with nine excellent actors of appropriate age to bring this stylish 1939 play-script to life. 

Toni Stone was the first female to play professional baseball in a major American baseball league and she happened to be African American. Toni played for teams around the country including the fabled Negro League Baseball teams like the Kansas City Monarchs and the unlikely monikered Indianapolis Clowns. She is the subject of a new off-Broadway play by Lydia Diamond opening for previews beginning May 23 at Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre just off Times Square.

The annual ORIGINKC Festival of new plays presented by the Kansas City Repertory Theatre kicked off Friday, May 3 with a baffling yet engrossing piece titled 'Unreliable' by playwright Dipka Guha. 'Unreliable' explores the characters and relationships between three individuals who are initially presented as a female attorney, a man held without formal charge as an enemy combatant, and the attorney's Mother.

Most Midwesterners older than a certain age have heard the name and may even know how young Buddy Holly died.  Some fans know exactly where they were and from whom they heard the news.  Many fewer know much about Buddy's backstory.   That hole in the history in early Rock and Roll is plugged by the new production of "Buddy … The Buddy Holly Story" at New Theater Restaurant in Overland Park now through July 7.

The 20th Anniversary Tour of 'Rent' has roared onto the stage at the Kansas City Music Hall for a week-long residency through Sunday, May 5.  'Rent,' a rock-opera rendering of Puccini's 'La Boheme,' is not easy stuff.   It is musically challenging and sometimes tough to follow, but it is also undeniably powerful and here performed at the highest possible level.

'Forever Plaid,' now playing at Theatre In The Park's indoor facility at the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center, is a very pleasant excuse to spend an evening stepping through a gentle time warp and into an entirely different musical experience.

“Inherit the Wind” is a fictional construction inspired by the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial and as a screed against the “Red Scare” activities of Wisconsin Senator (R) Joseph McCarthy during the early 1950s.

Opening night Kansas City audiences for 'Anastasia the New Broadway Musical' were treated to a tremendously well performed, visually dazzling, homage to the classic musical theater form. 

Community Theater is alive and well in Johnson County Kansas for all Kansas City metropolitan audiences and actors.  I find myself annually amazed at the number of people who show up and audition to participate in the Shawnee Mission Park TTIP outdoor shows and the quality of the performances offered at the 4500 capacity outdoor amphitheater.   For 2019, five-hundred-sixty-one hopefuls attended the tryouts either in person or by video conference.

Veteran character actor Peter Scolari stars in a featured role in the New Theatre production of Neil Simon's "Biloxi Blues."

New Theatre and Restaurant's production of Neil Simon's 'Biloxi Blues' transports its 2019 audience back to Army boot camp during the closing days of World War II.   Simon has been mostly recognized for plays that depend on situations producing comedy and quick laughs. 'Biloxi Blues' is more serious. 

Dena Blizzard's 'One Funny Mother' is a well-designed one-woman-show playing in the Starlight Stagehouse Theatre for a slightly weather attenuated five day run through Sunday.  Dena is a very attractive lady in her early 40s with a slightly off-kilter view on the realization that most people experience as they begin to change through their lives.  Dena has the courage to give voice to that experience.

Kansas City, MO-Kansas City Repertory Theatre on Monday evening announced the 2019/2020 prospective season in front of a packed Posinelli Conference Center audience including members of the news media. Executive Director Angela Gieras, Interim Artistic Director Jason Chanos, and Assistant Artistic Director Kim Martin- Cotton announced the plays and musicals slated for the new season beginning in September 2019 at the Spencer Theatre on the UMKC campus and at the Copaken Stage downtown.

Playing through this week, The American Theatre Guild presents Andy Ferrara's new touring production of 'Evita' from the revered pens of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The year 2019 marks the fortieth American anniversary of this entirely new approach to musical theater. It is opera (albeit rock opera) that is accessible to a general audience.

The place is 1930s Berlin during the fading years of the Weimar Republic before Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. The play is 'Cabaret,' the 1966 multiple Tony Award winning musical iteration of Christopher Isherwood's semi-autobiographical novel about the rise of the Nazis and libertine Europe performed at the Jewish Community Center's White Theatre.