The fourth and final phase of the Rose Garden restoration project was completed in December, 2014 at a cost of $403,000. All 66 stone pillars encircling the rose garden were restored and new redwood cedar pergolas placed atop the structures. The bronze plaques announcing the garden, but stolen during the 1940s, were replicated and placed at each main garden entry.
The purpose of the restoration plan, conceived in 2000, was to restore the entire rose garden to reflect the original design developed by the firm of Hare & Hare in 1931. The process took 14 years to complete with the assistance of hundreds of donations from the Kansas City community. Corporations, Foundations, trust funds and individuals contributed $2 million to fund this endeavor. The Kansas City Rose Society wishes to express heartfelt gratitude to all those who donated to preserve this historic Kansas City treasure.
Major donors include: The Helen Blackman Foundation, Martha Jane Starr Field of Interest Fund,William T. Kemper Foundation, Helen S. Boylan Foundation, J.B. Reynolds Foundation, Victor Speas Foundation and the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department.
Plan to join a celebration of this historic restoration on Sunday, May 31 for Kansas City’s Official Rose Day!
This Memorial Day weekend, the legendary music of four rock ‘n’ roll icons will reverberate throughout Starlight Theatre and its Swope Park surroundings as Million Dollar Quartet kicks off Starlight’s 65th Broadway season. From May 22 to May 24 at 8 p.m. each night, the spirit and sounds of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash will transport Starlight audiences back to Dec. 4, 1956 and the famed Memphis recording studio of Sun Records.
The Tony Award®-winning Million Dollar Quartet is inspired by the events of that December evening when an auspicious twist of fate brought together Presley, Lewis, Perkins and Cash for the first and only time. The music and magic they made at Sun Records’ storefront studio, where producer Sam Phillips launched each of their careers, would go down in history as one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll jam sessions of all time.
“The music of Million Dollar Quartet is outstanding, the story is captivating, and audience members leave humming the tunes,” said Rich Baker, Starlight president and CEO. “I’m thrilled that we’re able to launch our 65th anniversary season with a musical set in the same decade that Starlight began. This is a show that people love the first time and then want to see over and over again.”
Million Dollar Quartet brings to life that legendary night with a compelling tale of broken promises, secrets, betrayal, humor and celebration. Its electrifying score features such timeless hits as “Blue Suede Shoes,” “That’s All Right,” “Sixteen Tons,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “I Walk the Line,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “See Ya Later, Alligator,” “Fever,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Hound Dog” and more.
After opening at Chicago’s Apollo Theatre in November 2008, where it continues to play to packed houses today as the city’s longest-running musical production ever, Million Dollar Quartet played on Broadway from April 2010 through June 2012. The show added London West End credits in 2011 and a Las Vegas production in 2013. The national tour coming to Starlight is in its fourth successful year, with more than 60 U.S. cities on the 2015 route.
Million Dollar Quartet in 2013 won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical and received Tony nominations for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical. The show also received an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actor.
The show is directed by Eric Schaeffer and features a book by Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux. The design team includes Derek Lane, scenic design. Howell Binkley, lighting design; Jane Greenwood, costume design; Kai Harada, sound design; and Chuck Mead, musical arrangements and supervision.
Tickets for Million Dollar Quartet at Starlight Theatre are on sale now for $12 to $92. Tickets are available online at www.kcstarlight.com, by calling 816.363.STAR (7827) or at the Starlight box office at 4600 Starlight Road, Kansas City, MO 64132. All performances begin at 8 p.m.
Discount prices for groups of 15 or more are available by contacting group sales manager Staci Shute at 816.997.1137 or staci.shute@kcstarlight.com.
A successful opening reception for the exhibition titled Divining the Museum: Visions of Past, Present and Future, which ison display from May 7 through June 13, 2015, was held May 2 at the Kansas City Museum located at 3218 Gladstone Blvd in Kansas City, Mo.
More than 80 people were in attendance at the event where they learned about the upcoming slate of exhibition tours that are free and available on the hour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, May 7-30, and Wednesday-Saturday, June 3-13. The reception included performative readings that told stories inspired by the layered history of the Museum and its myriad inhabitants over the years. The ongoing exhibition, Divining the Museum, showcases contemporary artwork, by local artists and students of the Kansas City Art Institute, including installations, sculpture, ceramics, and photography alongside a selection of original historical objects from the Museum’s collection. Divining the Museum stimulates curiosity, dialogue, and dreams of the future Kansas City Museum and is the first exhibition of 2015; it sets the tone for the year, aiming to honor past aspirations and boldly face existing ones.
This year, the Museum is celebrating its 75th anniversary as a public museum, and Anna Marie Tutera, executive director, said plans are in place to actively engage the neighborhoods in the Historic Northeast, the Kansas City arts and culture community, and the greater public as the Museum’s restoration and rehabilitation efforts rev up.
“As we look ahead to the future of the Kansas City Museum, Kansas City Parks and Recreation is taking the excellent work that has been done already with regard to past restoration and planning, and focusing on how to create a functional and premier museum site,” Tutera said.
With new leadership in place at the Museum, and with solid themes, concepts, and approaches from the 2010 Interpretive Plan, the work ahead will also expand the vision of the Museum to serve local, regional and national visitors to the Kansas City Museum, as well as integrate existing and forward-looking museum and historic preservation best practices to the design. During the planning, the Museum is keeping the site open and active as much as possible to continue the vital connection with the community.
The Museum has hired International Architects Atelier, a local architecture studio committed to design excellence through exploration, experimentation, and innovation. International Architects Atelier is providing professional design along with managing and coordinating all of the important aspects of the current planning and future construction. For more information about the Kansas City Museum, the current exhibition, or future planning, visit www.kansascitymuseum.org.
BACKGROUND ON THE KANSAS CITY MUSEUM Located at 3218 Gladstone Boulevard in the Historic Northeast community of Kansas City, Mo., the Kansas City Museum is comprised of five original buildings, including the mansion Corinthian Hall, which was built in 1910 as a private residence by lumber magnate, civic leader, and philanthropist, Robert Alexander Long.
The private residence became a public museum in 1940, and Corinthian Hall and its estate stand as both a monument and palimpsest of Kansas City history. It is owned by the City of Kansas City, Missouri and operated and managed by the City of Kansas City, Missouri Parks and Recreation. This true American palace offers an architectural, artistic, and historic legacy rooted in a deep sense of place and creative vision. Currently under renovation, Corinthian Hall and the buildings that comprise the Kansas City Museum reveal visible and enduring traces of the past, as well as the promise of what is to come. The Collection contains more than 100,000 artifacts and several thousand more archival materials that interpret Kansas City and regional history.
As preparations continue for its 65th Broadway season under the stars, Starlight Theatre will present six nationally touring hit Broadway productions this summer. Plus, as it does each season, Starlight will self-produce one full-scale Broadway musical. In 2015, the locally produced show is Disney and Cameron Mackintosh’s magical musical Mary Poppins, which takes the Starlight stage July 24-August1.
To ensure Mary Poppins is a supercalifragilistic success artistically, Starlight is pleased to announce it has reassembled the production “dream team” that oversaw the 2014 production of The Sound of Music, the theatre’s top-attended show last summer.
Returning to Starlight for the 10th time is Tony Award®-nominated director Philip Wm. McKinley, who is credited with shoring up Broadway’s Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and turning it into a box office hit. He also directed The Boy from OZ starring Hugh Jackman, among his numerous other Broadway credits. Director McKinley is again joined by producer Donna Thomason, who has enjoyed a 25-year association with Starlight and serves as president and creative director of Starlight’s subsidiary company, EPIC Innovative Events, Inc.
“Before he even left Kansas City after directing The Sound of Music last July, Phil learned that we Starlight Theatre Announces 2015 Broadway Season with Five Shows, Two Weekend Specials planned to produce Mary Poppins in 2015 – and he really wanted to return to direct the show. Schedule conflicts with a project he was developing wouldn’t allow it, however, so I gladly agreed to take on the directing assignment,” Thomason said. “Then, Phil called us back just a couple of weeks ago to report that his summer schedule had freed up, so we decided to welcome him back with open arms. I’m thrilled we’ll be working together again to bring this illusion-packed, danceheavy, technically exacting show to life for Starlight audiences.”
Alongside McKinley as director and Thomason as producer, musical director Anthony Edwards also returns to the creative dream team for Mary Poppins, which marks his 10th show in this role at Starlight. The trio is pleased to add a new talent to their team in 2015 – choreographer Alex Sanchez of New York’s Broadway Dance Center.
And, for the icing on the cake, New York actress Analisa Leaming, who captured audience members’ hearts with her memorable performance as Maria in The Sound of Music last summer, reclaims her leading-lady status as no-nonsense nanny Mary Poppins. Leaming this spring made her Broadway debut in the revival of On the Twentieth Century, starring Kristin Chenoweth. She also has appeared Off-Broadway in The Fartiste, Where’s Charley? and Pipe Dream.
“All of us at Starlight are delighted to bring this powerhouse team of creatives and performers back together to lead our production of Mary Poppins,” said Rich Baker, Starlight president and CEO. “This musical, which makes its Starlight debut in July, is annually one of the most requested shows on our audience survey, so we are committed to making it the best it can possibly be!”
Alongside performers from New York and elsewhere, several professional actors with strong ties to Kansas City have been cast in Mary Poppins, including Becky Barta, Christina Burton, Charles Fugate, Melinda MacDonald, Kip Niven, Bruce Roach and Licia Watson. In addition, 11-year-old Maddox Bane of Kansas City North won the role of young Michael Banks. St. Louis native Fiona Scott, 12, has been cast as Jane Banks; last summer she lit up Starlight’s stage as Brigitta von Trappin The Sound of Music.
All-new costumes for Mary Poppins are being created by Kansas City Costume Co., and a new set is being designed and constructed in collaboration with three other regional theatres across the country.
CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER.On Saturday, May 9, the Heart of America Council, Boy Scouts of America and Kansas City Parks and Recreation are teaming up to get Kansas City ready for spring. An estimated 400 Scouts and KC Parks employees will celebrate the inaugural DIG DAY by planting close to 100 of the city’s community flower beds on Mother’s Day weekend.
DIG DAY festivities will officially kickoff at 9 a.m. at the Eagle Scout Memorial Fountain located at 39th and Gillham in Kansas City, MO. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Scouts and KC Parks employees will report to their assigned dig sites to plant flower beds around the city.
Public invited to bike, walk, stroll and play on KC Parks Ward Parkway as part of this open streets festival!
Cycle in The City, an initiative led by the City’s Bike KC program will transform a portion of Ward Parkway boulevard to a family-friendly open streets festival on Saturday, May 16, from 2-5 p.m. Cycle in the City is free and open to all ages and was designed to encourage urban exploration in an innovative, healthy, social and fun environment without the interference of motor vehicle traffic.
From Meyer Circle Fountain to Gregory Boulevard (link to event map), Cycle in the City will feature a variety of free, family-friendly activities including the opportunity to bike, walk, roll, stroll, jog and play along one of Kansas City’s most beautiful thoroughfares.
Cycle in the City has no start or finish line, just a wide-open, split-lane boulevard with games, music and other entertainment stationed throughout the 2-mile course loop.
Activities include:
DJ, Live Music and Roaming Performers
Free Rock Climbing Wall and Bungee Bounce Pods
Arts and Crafts from Oddball Kids
Free Yoga courtesy of Yoga Rocks the Park Kansas City
Badminton, Bags and other Lawn Games
Free Dance Lessons courtesy of the Kansas City Ballet
Delicious Food and Beverages available for purchase
Bike safety course and much more!
For more information about Cycle in the City, including volunteer opportunities, traffic/parking information, activities and the event map, visit www.CycleinKC.com!
Cycle in the City is modeled after similar, highly-popular events held in cities around the world, commonly known as Ciclovia’s. An initiative led by the City’s Bike KC program and managed by O’Neill Marketing & Event Management, more information is available at cycleinKC.com. The Bike KC program works to transform the City into a bikeable and walkable community through infrastructure, planning, design, education and encouragement.
