T HE WRITERS P L ACE Fall 2012 Workshop Schedule Enroll Now! @ www.writersplace.org You Had Me at Hello, fiction writing with Michael Pritchett Thursdays, Oct. 18 & 25 | 6 PM - 9 PM | $120 nonmembers/$90 members Vision & Revision: Seeing into the heart of the poem, with Neil Shepard Saturday, Oct. 20 |10 AM - Noon | $30 nonmembers/$20 members The Self & the World: Oppositional energies inside a poem, with Neil Shepard Saturday, Oct. 20 | 1 PM - 3 PM | $30 nonmembers/$20 members Playwriting/Screenwriting, with Philip blue owl Hooser Saturday, Oct. 27, Nov. 3, 10, 17 | 10 AM - 1 PM | $240 nonmembers/$180 members Precision & the Poet, with Trish Reeves Saturday, Oct. 27, Nov. 3, 10, 17 | 2 PM - 4 PM | $160 nonmembers/$120 members Sit, Walk, Write: Laying a foundation for a writing practice, with Bob Chrisman Tuesdays, Oct. 30, Nov. 6, 13 & 20 | 10 AM - Noon | $120 nonmembers/$80 members Writing Persuasive Essays, with Bill Tammeus Thursdays, Nov. 1 & 8 | 7 PM - 9 PM | $60 nonmembers/$40 members Finding the Sound of My Own Voice: Writing poetry for young writers (7th-12th grades), with Judith Towse Roberts Saturdays, Dec. 1 & 8 | 9 AM - Noon | $90 nonmembers/$60 members The Art of Bookbinding, with Megan Mantia Saturday, Dec. 15 | 10 AM - 3 PM | $63 nonmembers/$43 members
BEST
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It’s opening night of The Fantasticks. Intermission has just ended. Audience members are back in their seats, poised for Act 2. So why are Spinning Tree directors Michael Grayman and Andy Parkhurst taking to the stage in an appearance that doesn’t look scripted? With a mix of disappointment and gravity, they announce that tonight’s show will not go on. What? The narrator, the swashbuckling bandit El Gallo — known in real life as Vigthor Zophoniasson — hurt his leg during a fight scene in Act 1. He was heading, as they spoke, to the emergency room. His suspected injury was later confirmed: a torn Achilles tendon. But the show did go on, just a few days later, after Zophoniasson (a native of Iceland) underwent surgery. On crutches or sitting in a wheelchair, he was a less agile if no-less-dashing El Gallo, and the restaging included some humorous asides on the earlier mishap while incorporating Grayman as an as-needed shadow. The show must go on — no mere catchphrase at Spinning Tree.
BEST BLUE CHRISTMAS 7KH 6DOYDWLRQ RI ,JJ\ 6FURRJH Unicorn Theatre unicorntheatre.org
The Unicorn’s Christmas offering last December wasn’t a typical Dickens rendition. Scrooge, in this case, was a burned-out rock star (Matthew Rapport), visited by a joyful Buddy Holly Ghost of Christmas Past (Matthew McAndrews, resembling the musician in both sight and sound). But it was Ron Megee’s Ghost of Christmas Present that really turned up the volume. His charismatic Elvis didn’t just break the fourth wall — he blew it down like an old chimney. He was also in fine form in the supporting role of a sadistic nun, but his electrifying, hilarious Elvis stopped the show. It was a gift we’d happily take again.
BEST SURPRISE 6OHHSLQJ :LWK -HQQL by Natalie Liccardello InTENsity Go to www.bestofkansascitychefs.com to purchase tickets.
Produced by Frank Higgins, Joseph Concha and Pete Bakely At Fishtank Performance Studio
The event was billed as “ten bitesized plays,” an evening of 10-minute one-acts by local playwrights. The short-form script 34
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is a tough format — some one-acts feel interminable. (A playwright must accomplish a lot in that abbreviated span, and it’s harder than it looks.) But Natalie Liccardello’s twoperson scenario went by too quickly. Actors Pete Bakely and J. Will Fritz were just two guys arguing over who would sleep with a girl named Jenni. Right? Wrong! A twist halfway through let the audience share a collective “Oh, of course!” The moment brought laughter, proving the performers’ full-on ownership of their characters. Actress-writer Liccardello’s skillful comedy reached its natural denouement, but we wanted more. Encore!
BEST SEASON OF REVIVALS Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre metkc.org
From January through June, MET took on an all-oldies slate that turned out to be all goodies. The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov, driven less by action than by drama emanating from conversations and emotions, was intense. The actors were up-close and personal in the intimate theater, their performances so riveting, you could’ve heard a pin drop. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Dale Wasserman’s adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel, remains best-known as the 1975 movie. In this version, Scott Cordes was a perfectly cast Randle McMurphy, exuberant and sensitive, and we feared Jan Chapman’s Nurse Ratched along with her patients and aides. The absorbing show found a fast-moving counterpoint in the Pride and Prejudice that followed. The Jane Austen favorite here became a condensed version that kept all the important parts. Most notable in the large cast (19 actors) were Robert Gibby Brand as Mr. Bennet, Emily Peterson as Elizabeth, and Marilyn Lynch as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. The perfect season ended with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, in which a large cast tapped into a current-feeling zaniness. Truly, it was a funny thing, though nothing was funnier than star Jerry Jay Cranford’s giggled ad-lib recovery after a forgotten line one night.
BEST WILDE NIGHT 7KH ,PSRUWDQFH RI %HLQJ (DUQHVW
American Heartland Theatre ahtkc.com
“Never speak disrespectively of society,” says Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s stillvital classic. “Only people who can’t get into it do that.” The opening lines set the tone of this laugh-a-minute mimicry of upper-crust Victorian society and the marriage state. But