John Dalton-White

THE MUSICAL COMEDY MURDERS OF 1940 at Wichita Community Theatre will have audiences laughing through the evening

You certainly won’t find the location of Almost, Maine on any map. That’s because the inhabitants of this upper Maine settlement never bothered to properly incorporate their area into a town. That’s a clue for what lies ahead in Almost, Maine, which opened this weekend at Wichita Community Theatre. The clever uplifting play is a collection of brief vignettes, loosely linked and confined to this remote area. As imagined by playwright John Cariani, Almost, Maine is often as mysterious as its title. Twenty-one actors play various townsfolk who come and go in nine scenes.

It is easy to “give yourself over to absolute pleasure” at Roxy’s current musical production of THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, where you are drawn into a peculiar charm of Richard O’Brien’s iconic musical the very moment you step inside and wait for the excitement to unfold. 

Most theatregoers only know George Bernard Shaw’s popular play, PYGMALION, through the Broadway musical classic, MY FAIR LADY. But Kechi Playhouse owner/producer/director Misty Maynard takes Shaw’s 1913 classic and smartly transforms it into a 1940s radio drama set in war-ravaged London during World War II.

This play has audiences in stitches. Be prepared to have a great time! Wichita Community Theatre opens its 2025-2026 season with Sandy Rustin’s side-splitting comedy and recent 2023 Broadway production of THE COTTAGE, under the direction of veteran Mary Lou Phipps-Winfrey.

When my college choral professor pulled out a song that the choir had sung frequently, he would call it “a sugar stick.”   Sugar stick refers to something that has been repeated repeatedly and needs very little work to prepare.  Charley’s Aunt is Kechi Playhouse owner/director Misty Maynard’s sugar stick.

A nostalgic trip based on a 1976 Disney movie

Once you get past the title of the show and the setting of a public restroom, Roxy’s production of URINETOWN THE MUSICAL is more than bathroom wit – it’s hilarious satire that pokes fun at capitalism, local government, environmental doom, and musical theatre itself.  It’s an entertaining evening that Wichita audiences won’t want to miss!

Guild Hall Players opens THE COVER OF LIFE by RT Robinson May 22, 23 & 24 at 8pm and May 25 at 7pm.  Tickets are $12 and can be purchased at the door. The theatre is located inside Saint James Episcopal Church

Roxy’s producer/director Rick Bumgardner and his crew have created a phenomenal regional premiere of the bawdy cabaret, Café Puttanesca. See here for more details!

The Burford Center for the Arts in historic downtown Arkansas City announces that The Burford Singers' annual concert will be on Saturday, May 3, 2025, at 7:00 pm at the Burford Theatre.  The theatre is located at 118 South Summit in Arkansas City.

Get ready to kick off your flip-flops, relax, and soak up the island vibes as Jimmy Buffet’s Escape to Margaritaville is onstage at The Forum Theatre.  The show runs through May 11.  With a book by Greg Garcia and Mike O’Malley, this upbeat jukebox musical is filled with the beloved hits of Jimmy Buffett, transporting audiences to a tropical paradise where love, laughter, and endless margaritas are always on the menu.

When you mention playwright and novelist Dame Agatha Christie to the average theatre audience member, they quickly come to mental images of her classics The Mousetrap, Ten Little Indians (now titled And Then There Were None), or The Unexpected Guest.  But Christie’s courtroom drama, Witness for the Prosecution, is one of the Queen of Crime’s finest, and ICT Rep is summoning Wichita audiences to the historic Sedgwick County Courthouse this last weekend and next to see how this drama unfolds.

What did our critic think of BOOK OF DAYS at Wichita Community Theatre?

With its engaging and sentimental tale of “forbidden-love-that-could-of-been,” Robert James Walker’s 1992 best-selling novel, The Bridges of Madison County, was made into a 1995 successful movie of the same title starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. After the success of that motion picture, book writer Marsha Norman teamed up with composer Jason Robert Brown to create the 2014 Broadway musical.  Wichita audiences now have the opportunity to hear that luscious score performed once more.

Michael Cristofer’s 1977 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama The Shadow Box concerns a grim topic that all of us will one day face.  Wildly successful on its release, it won the Tony Award for Best Play.  But for all its success, oddly enough, it has rarely been produced since the 1980s.  The play tackles the universal themes of loss, fear, and human attachment.  Guild Hall Players mounts a heartbreaking and emotional production of The Shadow Box and succeeds in tackling this demanding piece of theatre.

What did our critic think of [TITLE OF SHOW] at Roxy's Downtown?

What did our critic think of BETWEEN THE LINES at Newman University?