On Stage

The Rep’s Evita is a splashy, sassy production the real Evita could appreciate

If you, like me, don’t know anything about Eva Peron (May 7, 1919-July 26, 1952), thought to be born Eva María Ibarguren, who became the wife of president and strongman Juan Peron, don’t worry. You won’t have to. And if the music and narrative songs sometimes sound like vintage 1978, it is. But Rep Artistic Director Eric Rosen’s direction, the great cast, and the live orchestra deliver an energetic Broadway-style musical with terrific vocals, dancing and music. (more…)

At Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s production of Our Town, for one brief evening, we were all residents of Grover’s Corners.

Thornton Wilder’s play is about small-town life in New Hampshire in the early 1900s. Nothing terribly exciting happens. The sun comes up, goes down, it’s a nice day. People go about their business. That’s the measured rhythm of life in Grover’s Corners. People in Grover’s Corners don’t exhibit much emotion, unless you pay attention and listen between the lines. (more…)

The Kansas City Actors Theatre production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead examines the truth or folly of self-determination and the isolation of existence.

Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is Shakespeare’s Hamlet seen from the viewpoint of two minor characters. Instead of seeing only their few quick scenes in Hamlet, we see the lives of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as they do: a continuum that includes the scenes with Hamlet, Claudius, et al.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Hamlet are in rotating repertory. They use the same actors, set and costumes, providing excellent continuity for those who see both plays. (more…)

Theater review by Frank C. Siraguso

Directed by Mark Robbins with a great cast, the Kansas City Actors Theatre  production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is timeless yet modern, dark with foreboding undercurrents of mayhem and danger.

(Hamlet is playing in rotating repertory with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, based on two characters in Hamlet, directed by Richard Esvang.)

Murder most foul

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is about actions and their unintended consequences. Prince Hamlet (an extremely agitated Jake Walker) is grieving for his late father, King Hamlet, who died unexpectedly. Hamlet then sees the ghost of his father, who tells him he was murdered, poisoned by Claudius (an edgy Scott Cordes). The ghost exhorts Hamlet to avenge the murder. (more…)