WAITING FOR YOU... Opens KC Rep's Workshop Series, Now thru 2/17

A developmental production of Sojourn Theatre and The TEAM's Waiting for You on the Corner of {13th and Walnut}, kicks off the Rep's First Page New Play Workshop today, February 8. Commissioned by Kansas City Repertory Theatre, this show runs through February 17 at Copaken Stage located at 13th and Walnut. Waiting for You on the Corner of {13th and Walnut} is co-directed by Rachel Chavkin of The TEAM and Michael Rohd of Sojourn Theatre.

Tickets are $20-$25 and can be purchased by visiting the KC Rep website here or calling the Rep Box Office at 816-235-2700.

A Kansas City play based on the stories of real people, Waiting for You on the Corner of {13th and Walnut} will first be performed on stage as a play in progress, and then, after each performance, members of the creative team will join the audience for a conversation about what they have just seen. Notes from that day's post-play discussion will be part of the continued development of the piece, and sometimes changes will be seen at the next day's performance.

As part of the development process, the creators and actors of Waiting for You on the Corner of {13th and Walnut} met with local community leaders and organizations to discuss the city's rich history and present-day challenges in order to create a new work that Chavkin and Rohd describe as "a play that invokes Kansas City as a microcosm for our country." Many KC public figures met with this team, including a U.S. Representative, music experts, journalists, and more, to make sure to do the town justice.

Led by Rohd and based in Portland, Oregon, Sojourn Theatre makes new theatre around the country. The Sojourn group says their shows, "blend metaphor with public reality to bring strangers together amidst experiences where the ethical possibilities of imagination are placed alongside the communal muscle of responsibility." The TEAM, the Theatre of the Emerging American Moment, is a New York City-based theatre company "dedicated to dissecting and celebrating the experience of living in America today." Rachel Chavkin is the founding artistic director of The TEAM.

For teachers interested in reduced-price student matinee performances, please contact Melinda McCrary at 816-235-5708 or mccrarym@kcrep.org.

Now in its 48th season, Kansas City Repertory Theatre is its region's only member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) and serves as the professional theatre in residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). "The Rep" produces mainstage plays and special events at Spencer Theatre on the UMKC campus and Copaken Stage located in downtown Kansas City. Kansas City Rep employs more than 250 professional artists, technicians and administrators, and serves more than 100,000 patrons and 10,000 school children annually. Kansas City Repertory Theatre is led by Artistic Director Eric Rosen, and Producing Director Jerry Genochio.