Arts, Pitch

The Mountaintop lifts MLK by taking him off the pedestal

Liz Cook — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:00:00 -0500

The Mountaintop at the Unicorn lifts MLK by taking him off the pedestal. by Liz Cook As the Unicorn Theatre's production of The Mountaintop begins, we're treated to a memorable series of stage pictures. It's Memphis, April 3, 1968, the stormy eve of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.…

Project Playwright returns with another season of aspiring playwrights

Deborah Hirsch — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Deborah Hirsch Project Playwright, in its second year, puts playwriting to the test. Aspiring local playwrights debut new works that are written, rehearsed and staged in less than 24 hours, then performed before a panel of judges and a voting audience.…

Jessica Brandl gets a handle on Manifest Destiny and the Midwest

Liz Cook — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Liz Cook Jessica Brandl's functional ceramics explore a rural Midwest that's not the usual picturesque farm scenes. Her Great Plains is a place racked by distinctly regional threats: F5 tornadoes, flooding along Interstate 29, rural blight.…

The West 18th Street Fashion Show mints a Gilded Summer

Nancy Hull Rigdon — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Nancy Hull Rigdon West 18th Street Fashion Show organizers were a few hours and drinks deep into a conversation when their focus turned to wealth distribution. "We began speaking about how most of the money in America is in the hands of just a few families," says Peregrine Honig, the event's artistic director.…

The MET's Ragtime: minimal sets, maximum feeling

Liz Cook — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre finds a voice in this nostalgic musical. by Liz Cook Musical-theater geeks, start your engines. The Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre's production of Ragtime has everything you want from a big show: lavish lighting and costumes, powerhouse performances, and emotional songs that swell to the top of the MET's intimate space.…

The Kansas City Actors Theatre looks into the American psyche

Berry Anderson — Tue, 28 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Berry Anderson The Kansas City Actors Theatre pretty much has the market cornered on experience. Its list of founders and its core artistic company include some of the city's most celebrated players.…

Summer Guide 2013 Theater

Tue, 28 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

MAY Thursday, May 30…

Burt Bacharach looks back — but keeps going

Dan Lybarger — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Dan Lybarger Burt Bacharach turned 85 this month but did almost nothing to lighten his still hectic schedule. When The Pitch contacted the producer-composer-pianist by phone, he was about to leave a New York hotel to catch a flight, on to the next event.…

Hurlyburly: Coke is tough, being a man tougher

Liz Cook — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Liz Cook The Living Room's electric revival of Hurlyburly caps a spring theater season that has hummed with masculine energy. Director Bryan Moses' production exposes a male angst so manic and so thick that you picture the stage crew hosing testosterone off the walls after every performance.…

Barry Anderson's The Janus Restraint: The Ascension chips off some Iceland for summer

Tracy Abeln — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Barry Anderson's exhibit chips off some Iceland for summer. by Tracy Abeln Barry Anderson is known for his bright, colorful video works: bars and diagonals and bubbles, light-rich abstractions that act as moving collages. His art features regularly in group exhibitions around the country and is in a number of museum and private collections, and recently he has collaborated with bands such as the U.K.'s Written in Waters, making abstract videos for their music.…

Hello Again turns love's wheel at Spinning Tree Theatre

Deborah Hirsch — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Deborah Hirsch When Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde debuted, around the turn of the 20th century, it was seen as so risqué — well, pornographic — that it went unproduced again for two decades. But yesterday's shock is today's prime time, and Michael John LaChiusa's 1993 musical adaptation, Hello Again, now appears no more barrier-breaking than your average HBO series.…

The Rep finds strong currency in Mamet's American Buffalo

Liz Cook — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Liz Cook The Kansas City Repertory Theatre's revival of American Buffalo, one of David Mamet's earliest plays, still has the power to shock. The Rep uses its program and a prominent sign to warn audiences about the 1975 play's raw language, but I still heard a few nervous titters as one of its rougher characters burst into a manic, profane monologue early on.…

Zippernut's Harl Van Deursen is a real card

Nancy Hull Rigdon — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Harl Van Deursen is the voice behind Zippernut greeting cards. by Nancy Hull Rigdon Harl Van Deursen is the quiet, funny guy of the group. When you forget about him, he delivers a deft one-two punch.…

The Living Room's open-spaced, smoldering Burn This

Deborah Hirsch — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Deborah Hirsch Anger, confusion, denial, isolation, longing — anyone dealing with grief knows these emotions. So do most people who have been in love.…

At the Unicorn, an artist's spellbinding journey

Deborah Hirsch — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

An intimate portrait of Asher Lev at the Unicorn Theatre. by Deborah Hirsch Art is Asher Lev's passion, his language, his way of interacting with everything around him. He can't remember a time when he didn't paint or draw.…

Ricardo Khan and UMKC Theatre score big with Kansas City Swing

Deborah Hirsch — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Deborah Hirsch "Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt.…

Bill Burr on doing theaters, berating Philadelphians, and topping his last hour

David Hudnall — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

The Pitch catches up with Bill Burr on tour. by David Hudnall After 20 years of grinding it out on the comedy circuit, Bill Burr is finally having his cultural moment. He has a recurring role on Breaking Bad; he acted alongside Al Pacino and Christopher Walken in Stand Up Guys; he has a successful weekly podcast, the appropriately named Monday Morning Podcast; and his act — long a favorite among comedy nerds and fellow comics — now plays to theater-sized audiences.…

Pride's Crossing, at the MET, swims against memory's currents

Deborah Hirsch — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Deborah Hirsch A pretty young woman dons a robe and slippers and takes to a walker, aging within moments from a vibrant youth to an elderly and ill woman. Celia Gannon's uncanny transformation, in the first minutes of Pride's Crossing, gives authenticity to her characterization of Mabel Tidings — child, teenager, young woman, nonagenarian — as she travels back and forth through the stages of her life.…

Aspiring artists discover a new world at Dan Frueh's Trap Gallery

Tracy Abeln — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Artists find a home in KC's Columbus Park neighborhood. by Tracy Abeln At its widest, the Columbus Park neighborhood is about 10 blocks by five blocks, ringed by interstate highways and sandwiched between the Heart of America and Christopher S. Bond bridges. Century-old townhomes sit alongside properties built during the last real-estate boom.…

Sondheim's Sunday in the Park With George onstage at Musical Theater Heritage

Deborah Hirsch — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Deborah Hirsch An artist begins with nothing more than an idea or a vision, then creates "order, design, tension, balance, harmony." And should that artist experiment with a new form, the public — and the critics — may not get the point or appreciate its difficult fulfillment.…

Electromediascope's latest series - The End - is its last

Theresa Bembnister — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

The Nelson-Atkins' Electromediascope completes a 20-year run this month. by Theresa Bembnister In Sheepwoman, artists Laetitia Sonami and Sue-C make a movie in real time, using motors and computers and projections and such unexpected objects as cans of compressed air. If that sounds like something you'd see at Electromediascope — the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's seasonal program of experimental film, video, sound, performance and new-media art — well, you're right.…

Is Bill Maher a "Christ-hating, half-Jew, half-pedophile, rape-enabling Catholic"? We report!

David Hudnall — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

The Pitch chats with Bill Maher, who stops in Topeka this weekend. by David Hudnall The last time Bill Maher was in this part of the Midwest, the cretins at the Westboro Baptist Church drove down to Springfield to protest his stand-up show. Saturday, Maher is making it even easier on those trolls: He's performing in their hometown, at the Topeka Performing Arts Center.…

Molly Kaderka figures out the past for her paintings

Theresa Bembnister — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Molly Kaderka reveals her figurative paintings in two shows. by Theresa Bembnister Molly Kaderka's mysterious, emotionally charged figurative paintings stand out in an art scene saturated with abstractions and social practices. Their fleshy figures occupy fantastic wooded landscapes or domestic interiors that resemble midtown Kansas City apartments.…

Taking in some First Friday gallery openings

Tracy Abeln — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Taking in some gallery exhibits in the Crossroads. by Tracy Abeln At the Blue Gallery (118 Southwest Boulevard), Brooklyn artist Alyssa Monk's Presence offers a striking display of hyper-realistic oil-on-linen paintings with an edge of surrealism. There's affordable art at Mattie Rhodes Gallery (919 West 17th Street), where Maria Calderón is divesting herself of as many of her past works as possible.…

Dylan Mortimer holds up messages with his Sign

Tracy Abeln — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Dylan Mortimer's latest gives you plenty to contemplate. by Tracy Abeln Until you read their titles, you might mistake the claw-shaped chandeliers, studded with old-fashioned Christmas lights, for alien helmets or some device ready to take over your mind. But go ahead, step under them.…