Kansas City Actors Theatre Announces Season Program

Picnic

August 6 - 25
Union Station's
H&R Block City Stage

By William Inge
Directed by Mark Robbins

A charming, uplifting and heartbreaking story of one life-changing day in the lives of two households in a small Kansas town in the early 1950s. Madge is coming of age and wonders if there is more to life than being a pretty girl destined to marry the first acceptable man who asks. Then Hal arrives in town, and his presence has a seismic effect on Madge and other members of the Owens' extended family. Hal sees a chance for an emotional attachment more deep and real than any in his shiftless life up to this point.

A whirlwind of passion and longing, makes this a summer picnic like no other!

Long Day's Journey into Night

September 3 - 15
Union Station's
H&R Block City Stage

By Eugene O'Neill
Directed by John Rensenhouse

One of the most admired plays of the 20th century, this is the widely acknowledged masterwork from America's leading dramatist. A loving, autobiographical account of the haunted Tyrone family, a family in which almost every family can see itself reflected, this moving play explores the hope of family love as it attempts to heal the wounds of marriage, of parenthood, and of sonship with a force that will never be forgotten.

Three Viewings

October/November
Venue TBD

By Jeffrey Hatcher
Directed by Melinda McCrary

Common wisdom is that funerals are for the living. The dead take their secrets with them and the living are left to fret about what was and was not shared. Set in a mid-western funeral parlor, this compellingly simple play introduces us to Emil, a lovelorn funeral director with depths and secrets no one imagines, Mac, a vivacious, cynical woman with a special to-do list for the funerals she attends and Virginia, a widow whose husband's death has left her with fresh troubles and a brand new "view" into the love of her life.

"Funeral parlors are somber places with odd pockets of hilarity", Hatcher says of his play. Three Viewings speaks truths for anyone who has, in the wake of loss, uttered the inner monologue of wild confession that can follow.

Journey's End

February 14 - March 1
National WWI Museum

By R.C. Sherriff
Directed by Mark Robbins

Co-Produced with UMKC Theatre

Set in the trenches at Saint-Quentin in 1918 towards the end of WWI,Journey's End takes you right into the dugout of a British Army infantry company. An "uncompromising, cleareyed play about war-and not war as it echoes on the home front or in chambers of government, but war as a daily phenomenon for those who fight it." (Ben Brantley, New York Times). Filled with finely-drawn characters, Journey's End brings a starkly human perspective in a WWI tale that is not to be missed.

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