A Conversation with Angela Lee Gieras Angela Lee Gieras is a financial whiz whose fundraising savvy is driven by a lifelong passion for theater, so she was in many ways the ideal choice for the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s new executive director post. The Florida native, who as development director for the Florida Theatre in […]

By Paul Horsley Part of the fun of watching William Inge’s Picnic just a stone’s throw from its setting, the small-town Kansas milieu in which the playwright was raised, is that its characters and themes seem so familiar. “Alan’s not like most boys, he doesn’t wanta do anything he’d be sorry for,” says Madge of […]

By Paul Horsley To be sure, one could start by looking at the sheer empirical data on Deborah Sandler’s first season as general director and CEO of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City: 92 percent of Kauffman Center seats filled, critical acclaim, a fiscal year ending in the black, an earlier casting schedule that has […]

BEL CANTO GETS BELLICOSE: New opera tells sad, amazing tale of boxer with surprising secret These days we’ve become accustomed to gays and lesbians inhabiting any field you can imagine, from politics to professional sports to the U.S. Marine Corps. But still – boxing? Champion is a powerfully theatrical piece, and its premiere last month […]

British playwrights have figured heavily into the Kansas City Actors Theatre seasons of late, so this year the nine-year-old company found material for its late-summer shows closer to home. KCAT’s “A Classic American Summer” features two landmark plays by our own countrymen – one by a Kansan with a flair for the iconoclastic and the […]

10 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT YOU, JULIA: Kauffman sparks yet another worthy arts project By Paul Horsley First Julia Irene Kauffman put up more than $100 million from the foundation named for her mother, Muriel McBrien Kauffman, and from her own resources to build one of the most grandly spectacular performing arts centers in the […]

BOLD NEW DANCE: In an era of change, Carney steps in as Kansas City Ballet’s new leader By Paul Horsley It must be an exciting time to be Devon Carney. After a long career that included distinguished stints as principal dancer for Boston Ballet and as associate artistic director at Cincinnati Ballet, the 53-year-old dancer/choreographer […]

  If you want to build a dance festival from scratch, the key is collaboration. When veteran Kansas City Ballet dancers Logan Pachciarz and Anthony Krutzkamp determined to create an off-season dance performance, their goals were twofold: to provide work for dancers and choreographers from various companies during the lean summer months, and to present […]

Harriman-Jewell presents up-and-coming violin and piano luminaries on Discovery series Elena Urioste and Gabriela Martinez effect a fine collaboration, playing with a unified and intuitive feel for each other’s musical outlook and direction. At the duo’s violin-piano recital on June 7th, part of the Harriman-Jewell’s Discovery Series, one was aware at times that the sharp […]

Summer in Kansas City used to be a pretty sleepy affair for classical music, theater and dance, but no longer. The Summer Solstice is not even upon us yet, and we’ve already had the Symphony in the Flint Hills, the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers, the MET’s Ragtime, the Starlight’s Catch Me if You Can, and […]

NO LIMITS   –    Stern on the Kansas City Symphony: We’re just getting started! One of the exciting things about living in Kansas City through the last decade has been the chance to see the Kansas City Symphony claim its place in the community as a world-class institution alongside the Nelson-Atkins and Kemper Museums, the […]

TRIUMVIRATE OF GREATS: Chorale fills Helzberg with rich sound in choral milestones Heavenly is the word that comes to mind in describing the Kansas City Chorale’s performance of Arvo Pärt’s The Beatitudes, the opening choral work on its March 24th program of three masterpieces that also included Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and Duruflé’s Requiem. […]

CHORAL CLARITY: Three-year-old choir performs works by Harris and others at Bolender Center Kansas City has long been a choral haven, and never as much as today. Of the dozen local professional or semi-professional choral ensembles I can think of just off-hand (not including church choirs), more than half were founded in the last decade. […]

The stars came out on May 12th, as the Kansas City Ballet bid farewell to its longtime artistic director, William Whitener. He departs this June 30th after 17 years at the company’s helm. A reception was held in the Kauffman Center’s Brandmeyer Hall after the Ballet’s season finale: Among the several hundred attendees were board […]

NINE FOR THE NINE THAT DRESSED SO FINE: Harriman-Jewell Series presents Cantus Cantus is an all-male a cappella ensemble consisting of nine singers who perform a most eclectic mix of music from all eras and genres. The group’s Harriman-Jewell Series debut on May 16th – bumped from its February date because of mounds of snow […]

BRASH BUT HUMBLE: Young Canadian brings honest pianism to Harriman-Jewell Series Young performers these days are so often given to musical excess and personal flamboyance that it’s refreshing to find one with a solid and sensible foundation on which to build a substantial career. Pianist Jan Lisiecki, 18, has excellent technique, sensitive musicality and a […]