Instead of pounding some pulled pork or binging on bacon in this home stretch of the grilling season, you may want to savor a vegetarian dish, which the folks at Café Seed (2932 Cherry) want you to know can be just as tasty and even more satisfying. The quaint eatery is known for serving... More >>

Before glamorizing teenage pregnancy in Juno, Ellen Page made her feature-film debut in 2002 with a little Canadian indie called Marion Bridge. The film was based on a play of the same name by Daniel MacIvor — the same play now taken on by the Kansas City Actors Theatre in a production at... More >>

Many confront the task of letting go of a sordid past and moving forward in life (unsavory as that process may be). Local songwriter Noah Earle's latest release, This Is the Jubilee, feeds off that spirit of rejuvenation. His lyrics embrace liberation from the past and immersion in life and... More >>

Betse Ellis, the fiddle player for high-energy KC hillbilly quartet the Wilders, summons that outfit's Ozarks-tradition sound on her first solo album. She explores some other styles, too. Don't You Want to Go? begins with a couple of traditionals: "White River," a bowed-and-plucked, fiddle-only... More >>

Johnson County Community College will host its third annual "Sustainability Expo and Dinner" beginning with the expo at 4 p.m. and gourmet dinner featuring locally grown food paired with Kansas wines at 6 p.m. More >>

Artists, writers and assemblers of elaborate model-railroad dioramas know that the best way to kindle the fires of creative inspiration is to listen to a lecture by someone in the appropriate field and then slavishly copy that person. So the Current Perspectives lecture series at the Kansas... More >>

This exhibition brings together the work of two promising young Korean-born artists, both recent MFA graduates of Indiana University Bloomington. June Yong Lee creates photographic work which "maps" the torso skin of his portrait subjects. Youngsuk Altieri references ecology and insect life... More >>

DUTY is a two-act play dealing with the role of moral obligation to country, family and self. The play deals with the challenges and consequences of living with commitment to perceived and real duty. More >>

This event is more concert than theater, but it does take something besides pure musical ability to pull off a great imitation of rock and roll legends. RAIN: A Tribute to the Beatles follows the fab four through the evolution of their sound and haircuts, incorporating archival concert footage... More >>

The paintings of Lawrence-based Molly Murphy have a scratchy, textural quality, a visual dryness underlying the often lush tendrils of foliage and ornate linework that surround her figures — masked wrestlers, middle-aged nudes, Madonnas. Tonight she opens Spatial Constructions, an exhibit... More >>

When H&R Block Artspace opens 2010 Kansas City Flatfile tonight, not even the director and curator, Raechell Smith, will have seen every piece in the biennial exhibition. With 180 artists in the drawers, a viewer would need a few visits to see them all. “This is the largest group... More >>

Through a partnership with the Urban Culture Project, Missouri Bank periodically turns four outdoor billboards into displays of work by local artists. The current Artboards feature the visions of Anne Lindberg and Paul Shortt. More >>

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (4525 Oak, 816-751-1278) observes the 125th anniversary of the Kansas City Art Institute with an exhibition of photography by prominent KCAI graduates, among them James Hajicek (class of 1970), an emeritus professor who heads the 19th-century photo-processes... More >>

Thomas Hart Benton moved to Kansas City in 1935 to teach at the Kansas City Art Institute, where he produced the predictably controversial and indisputably sexxxy "Persephone," an American regionalist interpretation of the mythical story of the goddess of fertility. The work now hangs at the... More >>

In celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Kansas City Art Institute, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art is pleased to present Lay of the Land featuring three exciting new bodies of work by the current ceramics faculty - George Timock, Cary Esser and Paul Donnelly. Th More >>

Since tooting their first note as a band in May 1998, the members of the Grand Marquis haven't taken more than a week off in 12 years. Add in the four (soon to be five) albums and 175 gigs a year and that, dear friends, is the portrait of one hardworking band. Of course, anyone who has been to... More >>

Latta says he's 50. Accompanied not by a band but by a simple amplifier and a minidisc player loaded with backup music, Latta covers standards by Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr. and Neil Diamond, singing in a low growl just ... behind ... the beat, then rushing to finish each line.... More >>

Producer and DJ Andrew Rayl, better known in the Kansas City hip-hop world as Beatbroker, made his biggest impression with the locals as the co-founder of the ultra-popular Hip-Hop and Hot Wings shows at the downtown Peanut, but he hasn’t stopped there. Nowadays, this broker is busy... More >>

Lawrence’s longest-running and most venerable dance party, Neon, has been spinning vinyl and shaking rumps since July 2001. The 18-and-older bootython unites fresh-faced college students and seasoned scenesters in the common cause of dancing every Thursday at 10 p.m. Neon has hopped from... More >>

One day, a group of dog lovers in and around Blue Springs met with that city's Parks and Recreation director, Roscoe Righter. The topic: an off-leash dog park. The pet owners were giving their spiel when Righter pulled out a folder and said he had been working on the idea for years. Ultimately,... More >>

Rife with corporate restaurants, highway roadhouses and mom-and-pop dive bars, Independence has few entertainment options for the young, local rock-and-roll set. Enter Damage Control (815 North Noland Road in Independence, 816-461-1117), a strip-mall saloon that caters to those who want loud,... More >>

The nightclub Crosstown Station, directly west of the Kansas City Star's press building, has revamped its second-floor bar, which offers a commanding view of downtown (and includes plenty of cushy couches to rest weary asses). The result is Press Bar, a versatile performance space that can... More >>

Sushi and cover bands don't go together like soy sauce and steamed rice, but the owners of downtown Overland Park's new Intentions (7316 West 80th Street, 913-652-6510) hope that patrons want their sashimi served to the sounds of Smokey Robinson tributes instead of shakuhachi (the Japanese... More >>

Troost Avenue is a stretch of geography and history of such scope and density that Thomas Pynchon might, if he knew about it, find a good novella there between his long graphomaniacal novels. Named for Dutch doctor Benoist Troost, the road had been an American Indian hunting ground and had once... More >>

CoCo Key Water Resort is Missouri's largest indoor water park. The slides, saunas, whirlpools, simulated coral reef and more are all located within a Holiday Inn. But you don't have to spend the night to take a dip. Day passes cost $5 Monday through Thursday and $15 Friday, Saturday and Sunday.... More >>