KANSAS, MO.: Kansas City Repertory Theatre has announced its 2018-19 season, which will include six works.
“My hope is that our 2018-19 season at Kansas City Rep will start conversations with artists, with audiences, and within our amazing city as well,” said artistic director Eric Rosen in a statement. “The plays and musicals we’ve selected celebrate the exhilarating scope of storytelling and the brave and bold themes that have marked our theatre company since 1964. They are immediate, important, intelligent, and highly entertaining, and they also speak very much to this moment in time.”
Opening the season will be the world premiere of Last Days of Summer (Sept. 7-30). With book and lyrics by Steve Kluger and music by Jason Howland, this musical is about a young Jewish boy who begins a correspondence with a player for the New York Giants. Jeff Calhoun will direct.
Next will be Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Oct. 19-Nov. 11). Jason Chanos and Eric Rosen will direct the adaptation of Steinbeck’s novel.
For the holidays, the theatre will mount its annual production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, adapted by Rosen (Nov. 16-Dec. 30).
Then in 2019, Kansas City Rep will produce Indecent by Paula Vogel (Jan. 18-Feb. 10, 2019). The play with music is about the creation of the controversial Yiddish play God of Vengeance. Rosen will direct the play, which will be coproduced by Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore Center Stage.
Following will be School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh (March 1-24, 2019). The play takes place in a boarding school in Ghana, where the arrival of a new American student throws the school’s social hierarchy into disarray. Chip Miller will direct.
To close the season, the theatre will produce Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (March 22-April 14, 2019). Marissa Wolf will direct.
In addition to its productions, Kansas City Rep will present its new-play festival OriginKC (April 20-May 19, 2019). The lineup includes Frida…A Self Portrait by Vanessa Severo and Unreliable by Dipika Guha.
Kansas City Rep was founded in 1964 and is the professional theatre in residence at University of Missouri, Kansas City.
