Alan Portner - Page 8

Audiences at 'School Of Rock, The Musical' (now playing at the Kansas City Music Hall) are in for an evening of fun.  This production is pure entertainment highlighted by a dozen songs from the reigning King of musical theater, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.  'School Of Rock' onstage offers a lot to admire and  much to enjoy including a ridiculously talented cast of mostly pre-teenagers.  

Now playing at the White Theatre inside the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park is their community theater production of Lerner and Loewe's 1960 classic 'Camelot.' Featuring a hidden away orchestra of twenty-three and a cast of seventeen 'Camelot,' is always a challenging project.

Lyric Opera's 'Madama Butterfly' as performed on the stage of the Muriel Kauffman Theater is extraordinary. Puccini's music remains transcendent even after one hundred fourteen years.

Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II touched off an earthquake in Musical Theater with their 1927 musicalized version of Edna Ferber's 'Show Boat.'  A new iteration of 'Show Boat' has shoved off from the dock inside the MTH Theater on the third level of Crown Center for what will be pleased audiences.

Horton Foote's 'Orphans' Home Cycle' is a monumental project for any theatre company.  Kansas City's Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre should be recognized for taking it on.  It is the first time any company has attempted Foote's Opus since its short Broadway run ending in early 2010. 

Rarely produced in full, Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre (MET) presents the entirety of Horton Foote's nine-act  Magnus Opus “The Orphans' Home Cycle” running in repertory through November 18, 2018. This massive production utilizes over 30 veteran performers from across the Metro KC area in 64 roles throughout the expansive production.  

Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre (MET), now located in the historic Warwick Theater on Main Street in Kansas City adjacent to the Plaza District presents 'The Orphans' Home Cycle' continuing in repertory until November 18.

'Of Mice and Men' transports us to Steinbeck's world on the Monterey Peninsula of California during the Great Depression prior to World War II.  It was (and still is) mainly an agricultural breadbasket area.  As the play opens, two of these men approach a ranch in Soledad California. They are George Milton (Jake Walker) and Lennie Small (Rusty Sneary).  George is a bright if uneducated man.  Lennie is a giant, but agonizingly slow.   

Now directing his first major show for the Kansas City Repertory Theatre is Interim Artistic Director Jason Chanos.   Chanos has been the Associate Artistic Director at the Rep since 2015 in addition to teaching acting at UMKC.  He holds a BA from the University of Northern Colorado and an MFA from UMKC.      Opening on Friday, October 26 (after a week in previews) is the UMKC/KCRep co-production of Steinbeck's 1937 "Of Mice And Men" at the Copaken Theatre inside the H&R Block Building in downtown Kansas City.

Powerful story, top notch stagecraft, and excellent acting make the Unicorn production of 'Sweat' by Lynn Nottage a must see before you cast your ballot on November 6.  'Sweat' begins to explain divisions in the 2018 electorate and how they developed.  The Pulitzer committee agreed and awarded this work the prize for drama in 2017.

"In The Heights" is Lin-Manuel Miranda's premiere effort at an entirely new way of telling a story through musical theater. "Theater In The Park's" fine indoor production of Miranda's "Heights" is a fine Kansas City area community interpretation of this 2008 four Tony award winner.

'Always… Patsy Cline' at New Theatre Restaurant in Overland Park is a delightful, two-hour sojourn into mid-twentieth century 'Country and Western' music.   Patsy Cline was an early country singer who achieved crossover success and a very loyal listener following.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City steps off its 2018-2019 season with a bravura interpretation of 1957's "West Side Story." It is difficult to say enough good things about this Lyric Opera of Kansas City presentation.

'Radio Golf' is the tenth and final work of African-American Playwright August Wilson's 'Century Cycle' of plays. This simple, yet representative production by KC Melting Pot Theatre is performed at the Just Off Broadway Theatre.

The characters in Eugene O'Neil's "Moon For The Misbegotten," now being performed by the Kansas City Actors' Theatre at Union Station, are tours de force for serious actors and serious audiences.   The story, while not autobiographical, follows the life path of O'Neil's brother James.  They are, in some ways, similar to the tragic heroes of William Shakespeare and the tortured souls of Tennessee Williams.

“Elegy For A Lady” is a tiny fragment of a play lasting no more than forty minutes, but also an insight into the mind of American playwright Arthur Miller.  Instead of being performed in a traditional theater, Bob Paisley and Heidi Van inhabit their characters inside a tiny lady's boutique in the Crossroads among, rather than in front of, a tiny audience of about twenty people.

Alan Lerner and Frederick Lowe's 1956 musical megahit 'My Fair Lady' opened last weekend at Musical Theater Heritage inside its three-venue Crown Center complex with a re-imagination by Kansas City's Heidi Van. This cast is multi-racial and sensitive to the modern relative roles of men and women in today's society.

The Spencer Theater, KC Rep audience roared its approval at the world-premiere, musical production of Steve Kruger's 1998 novel 'Last Days Of Summer.'   In collaboration with Composer Jason Howland and Director Jeff Calhoun, Kruger's new play takes its first full scale step toward a hoped for long run on the Great White Way

'Love Never Dies' is absolutely worth seeing.  It is lush.  The voices are beyond exceptional.  Sets, costumes, and effects are haunting. The direction by Australians Simon Phillips and choreography by Graeme Murphy AO completely envelop the space allowed.  The traveling pit orchestra conducted by Dale Rieling is as good as it gets.  There are several, new, show stopping songs and lots of achingly beautiful echoes of the original Phantom score.

Great theater requires a willing suspension of disbelief.  'The Producers' by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan requires a willing embrace of 1940's Catskill schlock and shtick.  That said, MTH's 'The Producers' is so much inspired silliness, so well performed, and so meticulously put together, it is tough to stop giggling and smirking and groaning at the awful, hysterical, politically in-correct, funny, one-liners.   The Saturday night, Crown Center audience for 'The Producers' thoroughly embarrassed itself and was delighted to do so.