Kansas City Theater Reviews

Review: TOOTSIE at Starlight Theatre
by Alan Portner - May 20, 2023

TOOTSIE (The Musical), is a fun opening evening for the seventy-first season of Starlight Theatre at Swope Park across from the Kansas City Zoo. Tootsie (The Film) was so good it is preserved it on the United States National Film Registry. Add the sea-change in attitudes surrounding same-sex relatio...

Review: EDDIE: THE FRIENDSHIP THAT CHANGED HISTORY At White Theatre
by Alan Portner - May 16, 2023

It is hard to imagine a tougher gig for any actor than a one-man show about an historical personage; especially in front of people who may have known that person in life or are related to him by blood. This is the towering achievement of actor Victor Raider-Wexler as he conjured up the living being ...

Review: STEEL MAGNOLIAS at MTH Theatre
by Steve Wilson - May 14, 2023

Padgett Productions, best known for ROCKY HORROR and EVIL DEAD THE MUSICAL, has stepped from its usual genres to inspire Kansas City audiences with the comedy-drama STEEL MAGNOLIAS, and Kansas City should be glad it has. What a fantastic show to bring to the main stage of MTH Theatre at Crown Cente...

Review: IS HE DEAD at Olathe Civic Theatre Association
by Alan Portner - May 13, 2023

Anything with the name Mark Twain on it draws a crowd.  “Twainiacs” like me will always show up.  This particular piece of Clemens’ literary output languished inside a file cabinet at the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley for a century.   It is difficult to know what to say...

Review: SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM at Kauffman Center For The Arts
by Alan Portner - May 11, 2023

WWe lost a giant of the arts on November 26, 2021.  Steven Sondheim was ninety-one years old.  Now eighteen months later, Lyric Opera has produced James Lapine’s 2008 retrospective SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM of his friend’s life work....

Review: MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET at New Theatre & Restaurant
by Alan Portner - May 01, 2023

MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET has returned to New Theatre & Restaurant after a five-year absence. For fans of early 1950s Rock N Roll music, finding a great production of the QUARTET is equivalent to stumbling upon the Holy Grail while flashing on their teenage years. MDQ is entertaining....

Review: ANNIE at Kauffman Center
by Alan Portner - April 19, 2023

If a musical comedy could be served up as comfort food, that show would look a lot like “Annie.”  Audiences have been lapping up the sweet story of Little Orphan Annie since it opened on Broadway in 1977....

Review: THE CRAFT: AN UNAUTHORIZED PARODY OPENS IN KANSAS CITY at The Westport Bowery
by Steve Wilson - March 31, 2023

They put a spell on me, those crazy witches and their craft. The magic of THE CRAFT: AN UNAUTHORIZED MUSICAL PARODY opened Thursday, March 30 at The Westport Bowery in Kansas City....

Review: THE RIPPLE, THE WAVE THAT CARRIED ME HOME at KC Rep
by Kelly Luck - March 19, 2023

Ms. Anderson’s work is an excellent example of voices that need to be heard. It takes on the segregation fight not with a high-level history book approach, but from the very ground level, the people fighting the fight and feeling the scars of battle....

Review: FORBIDDEN BROADWAY at Starlight Indoors
by Alan Portner - March 10, 2023

“Forbidden Broadway” the musical parody performs on the actual indoor stage (not the Butterfield Stage) at Starlight Theatre in Swope Park in front of an audience of about 500 wildly amused patrons.    “Forbidden Broadway” is a thorough skewering of all those Broadway shows you’ve either seen or ho...

Review: CONDO-MONIUM at New Theatre & Restaurant
by Alan Portner - February 20, 2023

The North American Premiere engagement for CONDO-MONIUM opened last week at Overland Park’s New Theatre & Restaurant with a super cast and direction by Dennis D. Hennessey for an extended run through April 8. CONDO-MONIUM is an updated farce from a very similar British show called FLAT OUT. Both ver...

Review: MY FAIR LADY at Kauffman Center
by Alan Portner - February 08, 2023

The core notion behind Lerner and Lowe’s 1956 “My Fair Lady.” This musical theater classic is the tale of an arrogant, egocentric, patrician, professor and phonetician named Henry Higgins and his fraught relationship with an attractive (behind the soot), unschooled, young flower-seller named Eliza D...

Review: FLOOD at KC Rep
by Kelly Luck - February 04, 2023

This reviewer has always been a fan of absurdist theatre, so it was with considerable excitement that she attended the evening's performance, eager to see a premiere that has come a mere 3 years after its workshop reading in 2019 (thanks again, covid). Happily, this reviewer can safely say she was n...

Review: KINKY BOOTS at The White Theatre
by Alan Portner - January 30, 2023

Live, local musical theater in Kansas City opens for 2023 with a delightful, surprising, unexpected production of 2013’s six-time Tony Award winner “Kinky Boots.” The more or less true tale of “Kinky Boots,” performs in the unlikely setting of the White Theatre inside Overland Park’s Jewish Communit...

Review: HADESTOWN at Kansas City Music Hall
by Alan Portner - January 18, 2023

Blend two ancient Greek myths, add the climate change crisis, a screed on capitalism, fears surrounding immigration, sprinkle in delightful, original folk music, and stir. The unlikely result is the 2019 eight-time Tony-winning folk opus “Hadestown,” an exceptional piece of musical theater....

Review: WHO'S HOLIDAY, A CHRISTMAS FAVORITE NOW PLAYING IN KANSAS CITY at Musical Theater Heritage
by Steve Wilson - December 13, 2022

If you want to see a hilarious Christmas show, then it’s to WHO’S HOLIDAY you should go. Padgett Productions in Kansas City brings back the holiday favorite in the Ruby Room at the Musical Theatre Heritage Theatre in Crown Center. This Christmas delight, unlike any other you may see, is directed by ...

Review: COME BLOW YOUR HORN at New Theatre Restaurant
by Alan Portner - December 10, 2022

New Theatre Restaurant’s new production of Neil Simon’s COME BLOW YOUR HORN is a holiday gift to its audiences. It is a charming, gentle entertainment that rekindles a time when you were too busy laughing to worry about anything else....

Review: TELL-TALE ELECTRIC POE OPENS IN KANSAS CITY AT at The Coterie Theatre
by Steve Wilson - October 24, 2022

Three of the master of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe’s most frightening and grizzly pieces appear on the main stage of The Coterie Theatre through October 30 with TELL-TALE ELECTRIC POE. Adapted and directed by Jeff Church, Producing and Artistic Director of The Coterie, TELL-TALE ELECTRIC POE is sui...

Review: THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW USHERS IN HALLOWEEN IN KANSAS CITY at The Black Box
by Steve Wilson - October 09, 2022

It’s astounding, time is fleeting, madness takes its toll. . .no it’s the opening weekend of Padgett Productions THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW. The cult musical, which has become a Kansas City favorite, has been ushering in the Halloween season for several years. I have been in the audience at least once (m...

Review: MAN OF LA MANCHA at Music Theater Heritage
by Alan Portner - October 10, 2022

Playing now at Music Theater Heritage through October 23 at Crown Center is an imaginative new production of 1965's Tony award winning Best Musical 'Man of La Mancha' offered by Musical Theater Heritage....

Review: AKEELAH AND THE BEE at Coterie Theatre
by Steve Wilson - September 27, 2022

How do you spell winner? A-K-E-E-L-A-H because that’s what The Coterie Theatre has in their production of AKEELAH AND THE BEE, now playing at the theater located in Crown Center. AKEELAH AND THE BEE written by Cheryl West is based on the award-winning film starring Laurence Fishburne with a screenpl...

Review: ABOUT ALICE at KC Actors Theatre
by Kelly Luck - August 21, 2022

KC native humorist's play a touching and often funny memorial to an extraordinary woman...

Review: You Don't Want to Miss LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS At the Warwick Theatre
by Steve Wilson - August 16, 2022

Nick Padgett, Producing Artistic Director of Padgett Productions presents LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, through August 21 at the Warwick Theatre in the Westport Entertainment District. This production is one of the best to hit the stage in Kansas City this year. I know when I left the theater I could sti...

Review: PREJUDICE AND PRIDE OPENS IN KANSAS CITY at Musical Theater Heritage
by Steve Wilson - July 16, 2022

The heavens are filled with bright, shiny stars and so is the stage at the Musical Theater Heritage theater located in Crown Center. The hilarious world premiere of PREJUDICE AND PRIDE runs through July 24th and then goes to Edinburgh, Scotland in August. Sam Writes and Nicholas Collett Production b...

Review: WORLD PREMIERE OF ALICE'S WONDERLAND OPENS IN KANSAS CITY at Coterie Theatre
by Steve Wilson - July 09, 2022

The Coterie Theatres' world premiere of a new family musical, ALICE’S WONDERLAND runs at The Coterie Theatre at Crown Center through August 7. Adapted from the Lewis Carroll classic story the musical features an original score with book, music, and lyrics by J. Quinton Johnson and Julia Riew. Briann...