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KANSAS CITY THEATER REVIEWS

The latest reviews and critic recommendations from Kansas City
Review: BUBBLE BOY, A MUSICAL ABOUT BURSTING OUT at Johnson County Arts & Heritage Ce

Review: BUBBLE BOY, A MUSICAL ABOUT BURSTING OUT at Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center

by Steve Wilson — November 1, 2024
What did our critic think of BUBBLE BOY, A MUSICAL ABOUT BURSTING OUT at Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center?...
Review: THE MUSIC MAN at White Theatre

Review: THE MUSIC MAN at White Theatre

by Alan Portner — October 28, 2024
Meredith Willson’s THE MUSIC MAN opened this week at The White Theatre to an almost full house standing ovation. THE MUSIC MAN is a tribute to small town America around the turn of the twentieth century. The location is River City, Iowa on the Iowa/Illinois border in 1912....
Review: 'Dammit, Janet' THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW is Live in Kansas City at The Grand The

Review: 'Dammit, Janet' THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW is Live in Kansas City at The Grand Theatre

by Steve Wilson — October 12, 2024
Forty-nine years after Richard O’Brien wrote the book, lyrics, and music for THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW it remains a cult classic, and it has risen to a new level as Padgett Productions opens THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW LIVE in the Grand Theatre at Crown Center in Kansas City. The show opened to a raucous au...
Review: AN OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY MURDER at New Theatre & Restaurant

Review: AN OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY MURDER at New Theatre & Restaurant

by Alan Portner — September 23, 2024
Imagine a very funny stage comedy hidden behind a locked door, puzzler of a 1940s mystery movie and you’ve got AN OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY MURDER now playing at New Theatre and Restaurant. It is a World Premiere production. Double Tony-winning playwright Joe DiPietro has cleverly developed a recipe fo...
Review: DIAL M FOR MURDER at City Stage At Union Station

Review: DIAL M FOR MURDER at City Stage At Union Station

by Alan Portner — September 17, 2024
It is a quest to commit the perfect murder, and it almost works. “Dial M For Murder” is the twisted story of a failed novelist who has married an heiress and has decided to do her in to inherit her millions....
Review: TREE OF LIFE at White Theatre

Review: TREE OF LIFE at White Theatre

by Alan Portner — September 17, 2024
Victor Wishna’s new play “Tree of Life” deserves an audience beyond its current World Premiere production ending on September 22.   It is a blessing (a bracha) to those fortunate enough to see the premiere engagement. This unusual and original new play is directed by Jonah Greene....
Review: TROUBLE IN MIND at Kansas City Actors Theatre

Review: TROUBLE IN MIND at Kansas City Actors Theatre

by Alan Portner — August 14, 2024
It is funny. It is a slice of life. It is a literal peek behind the curtain. Kansas City Actors Theatre production of Alice Childress’s TROUBLE IN MIND allows audiences a long-delayed opportunity to vision America (and its theatrical community) as it appeared in 1955 from an African American point...
Review: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES at Music Theater Heritage

Review: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES at Music Theater Heritage

by Alan Portner — August 4, 2024
Looking for a little relief from the ongoing political season? If so, I should like to recommend the outrageous, belly-laugh of a show now playing in the Music Theatre Heritage Grand Theater on the fourth floor of Crown Center described by another audience member as “awesome.” It is the self-dep...
Review: SISTER ACT THE MUSICAL At Theatre In The Park

Review: SISTER ACT THE MUSICAL At Theatre In The Park

by Alan Portner — July 29, 2024
The final show of Theater In The Park’s 2024 outdoor season is a musical version of the 1992 film comedy “SISTER ACT.”  ...
Review: THE LITTLE MERMAID at White Theatre

Review: THE LITTLE MERMAID at White Theatre

by Alan Portner — July 28, 2024
What did our critic think of THE LITTLE MERMAID at White Theatre?...
Review: MOULIN ROUGE THE MUSICAL at American Theatre Guild

Review: MOULIN ROUGE THE MUSICAL at American Theatre Guild

by Alan Portner — July 26, 2024
MOULIN ROUGE The Musical Is something entirely new to the wave of Juke Box musicals overwhelming the Great White Way.  It is big, bold, brassy, and projects an altogether sexy sumptuousness while maintaining a sense of humor about itself. The audience leaves the theater on a massive sugar high, ful...
Review: DISNEY'S NEWSIES at New Theatre & Restaurant

Review: DISNEY'S NEWSIES at New Theatre & Restaurant

by Alan Portner — July 16, 2024
This production of NEWSIES, directed and choreographed by Jerry Jay Cranford and assisted by Christina Burton, features a cast of twenty-two dancers and singers, plus constantly in motion LED backdrops, a bridge flown high off the stage floor, combined with three matching stair/tower units strategic...
Review: BIG TROUBLE AT LITTLE YALTA at Central Standard Theatre

Review: BIG TROUBLE AT LITTLE YALTA at Central Standard Theatre

by Alan Portner — July 6, 2024
It is not often an audience gets the chance to participate in the developmental process of making significant art that also qualifies as fun. BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE YALTA by Neal Salvage may be that rare opportunity when parody, satire, and history can come together. ...
Review: ANASTASIA THE MUSICAL at Theatre In The Park

Review: ANASTASIA THE MUSICAL at Theatre In The Park

by Alan Portner — June 18, 2024
Second show this spring at the Shawnee Mission Park Theatre In The Park, is ANASTASIA, a 2017 fairy tale based on a wished-for result concerning the Russian Grand Duchess Anatasia. This, in turn, was based on an earlier 1997 animated film and an even earlier imagining in a 1956 film. ANASTASIA the ...
Review: PORGY AND BESS at Music Theater Heritage

Review: PORGY AND BESS at Music Theater Heritage

by Alan Portner — June 10, 2024
Now playing in the Grand Theater at Crown Center is Music Theater Heritage’s production of Gershwin’s “PORGY AND BESS.”  This is an example of MTH going “all in” on a very challenging show and producing an extremely credible final product. ...
Review: THE LEHMAN TRILOGY at Kansas City Actors Theatre

Review: THE LEHMAN TRILOGY at Kansas City Actors Theatre

by Alan Portner — May 26, 2024
The Lehman Trilogy studies American Dream Mythology as seen through the eyes of Italian playwright and poet Stefano Massini. The English translation by Ben Power transfigures itself into an absorbing and poignant exercise in stellar storytelling as one might imagine it by three brothers around a met...
Review: HOT THE MUSICAL at Unicorn Theatre

Review: HOT THE MUSICAL at Unicorn Theatre

by Alan Portner — May 17, 2024
In performance now through June 2 is HOT THE MUSICAL, an entertaining and original new take on the Greek Mythology surrounding Helen of Troy and the Trojan Wars. The show is staged at Unicorn Theatre on Main Street. This one is definitely worth your time....
Review: MJ THE MUSICAL at KC Music Hall

Review: MJ THE MUSICAL at KC Music Hall

by Alan Portner — May 8, 2024
Michael is Roman Banks with a spot-on almost miraculous personification of the Ing of Pop.  The dancing, the voice, the persona.  They are all there.  Banks offers a remarkable performance.  ...
Review: SQUABBLES at New Theatre Restaurant

Review: SQUABBLES at New Theatre Restaurant

by Alan Portner — May 5, 2024
For those of you who feel the need for a light, fun evening of laugh out loud comedy and a delightful meal, let me recommend “SQUABBLES” a live comedy play that has Just opened at New Theatre Restaurant in Overland Park.  “SQUABBLES” is a light comedy with an unusually tight and experienced...
Review: ROCKY THE MUSICAL at MTKC Pro

Review: ROCKY THE MUSICAL at MTKC Pro

by Alan Portner — April 15, 2024
The Music Theatre Kansas City – (Pro) KC Premiere production of the 2014’s Broadway version of “Rocky the Musical” is surprisingly worth your time.  It is hard to have avoided Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky Franchise” beginning as a sleeper, low budget film hit in 1976.  So far there ha...
Review: STRANGER SINGS, THE PARODY MUSICAL at The Black Box

Review: STRANGER SINGS, THE PARODY MUSICAL at The Black Box

by Steve Wilson — April 7, 2024
But on the upside, there is always Hawkins, Indiana, nothing strange ever happens there. Unless you are in the upside/down and Hawkins is inside The Black Box, for Padgett Productions' phenomenal Kansas City premiere of STRANGER SINGS, THE PARODY MUSICAL....
Review: CLUE at Kauffman Center

Review: CLUE at Kauffman Center

by Alan Portner — April 4, 2024
Three quarters of a century following its first North American game release, a top-quality touring play version of “Clue, A New Comedy” has appeared set in a mansion located in suburban Washington, D.C.   At the risk of sounding like a bad horror novel or even worse “B” movie, all the acti...
Review: GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER at White Theatre At The JCC

Review: GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER at White Theatre At The JCC

by Alan Portner — March 19, 2024
“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” is a very funny idea and the 2014 Tony winner for best new Musical.  It is currently playing at the White Theatre inside the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park through March 24....
Review: SHOUT! THE MOD MUSICAL at Black Box Theater

Review: SHOUT! THE MOD MUSICAL at Black Box Theater

by Alan Portner — March 12, 2024
Shout! The Mod Musical” is more of a loose musical revue, than a musical play. It is costumed and set for London during the period I was emerging from my teenage cocoon years into young adulthood. I clearly remember the performers who introduced the music from this show into the canon....
Review: MAMMA MIA! at Kansas City Music Hall

Review: MAMMA MIA! at Kansas City Music Hall

by Alan Portner — March 6, 2024
Plain old feel-good musicals are rare. The “Dancing Queen” of this limited genre is “Mamma Mia!” The 25th Anniversary tour of this truly enjoyable evening out at the theatre plays through Sunday, March 10, 2024, at the Kansas City Music Hall in downtown Kansas City....
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Videos


A Musical Journey on Canvas in Kansas City A Musical Journey on Canvas
Pizza Haus - Jefferson City (5/22-5/23)
MRS. DOUBTFIRE in Kansas City MRS. DOUBTFIRE
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (6/02-6/07)
Wicked in Kansas City Wicked
Kansas City Music Hall (8/22-8/22)
Wicked in Kansas City Wicked
Music Hall Kansas City (8/12-8/30)
SHREK The Musical in Kansas City SHREK The Musical
Theatre in the Park (5/22-5/30)
WICKED in Kansas City WICKED
Music Hall (8/12-8/30)
Louis Tomlinson in Kansas City Louis Tomlinson
Cable Dahmer Arena (7/02-7/02)
Guns N’ Roses in Kansas City Guns N’ Roses
Busch Stadium (8/16-8/16)
Kinnor Philharmonic Summer Concert  in Kansas City Kinnor Philharmonic Summer Concert
The White Theatre at The J (5/31-5/31)
The Addams Family in Kansas City The Addams Family
Theatre Lawrence (6/05-6/21)