CHESTNUT FINE ARTS CENTE

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 have been six “Roc...

by Steve Wilson - April 07, 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....

by Alan Portner - April 04, 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 action takes p...

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....

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....

by Alan Portner - March 06, 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....

by Alan Portner - February 17, 2024

Victor Trevino, Jr. as Elvis Presley is brilliant in New Theatre & Restaurant’s new Tribute Concert to the “King” called “Aloha from Vegas.”  To get much closer to Elvis, you need a time machine. ...

by Alan Portner - January 30, 2024

What did our critic think of THE PROM at White Theatre? Running now at the White Theatre inside the Jewish Community Center is a production of a new musical dealing with the serious subjects of celebrity, gender identity and social intolerance run wild that somehow still offers the audience a real f...

by Alan Portner - January 24, 2024

Connor McPherson’s “Girl from the North Country” enjoyed the Kansas City opening of its first national tour at the Kauffman Center on Tuesday night for a one week residency. McPherson has written and directed a “slice of life” show and filled in the blank spaces with songs from Bob Dylan’s career. ...

by Alan Portner - January 20, 2024

They say you never forget your first.  That was certainly the situation for a former Scotland Yard Police Inspector named Rough (played by John Rensenhouse).  Oddly, Inspector Rough had no known first name. Rough’s first bloody murder case in 1865 remained unsolved fifteen years after the event....