Author Tracy Daugherty discusses Hiding Man, his new biography of Donald Barthelme, who came to prominence as the leader of the postmodern movement, was a fixture at The New Yorker, publishing more than 100 short stories, for which he earned acclaim as an innovator of the short story form. A 6:30 p.m. reception precedes the event. Thu., Sept. 17, 7…
In this event that begins at UMKC’s University Playhouse, men will wear women’s high heels for one mile in order to promote awareness of violence against women. Tue., Sept. 22, 5:30 p.m., 2009 Tags: Night & Day, UMKC’s University
Maybe it’s no surprise that Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider is leading a motorcycle ride to benefit babies — after all, he used to wear long hair, dresses and enough eye makeup to pass for a big, scary woman. Reproductive health is the next logical step, right? Today Snider and an entourage of grizzled bikers and weekend warriors will roar…
First performed off Broadway in 1982, the themes in this powerful drama resonate as loudly today as they did more than two decades ago. The story centers on Marjorie, who is attacked in her home by rapist Raul, but she is able to turn the tables on her attacker. What follows is a study on the differing views of rape…
A presentation in the museum’s Hudson Auditorium with special guest artists Laura DeAngelis and Matt Dehaemers. DeAngelis creates life-sized figurative ceramic sculpture incorporating celestial and natural imagery. Dehaemers creates sculptural installation works in public spaces and uses local histories to connect diverse communities. Thu., Sept. 17, 3:30-4:30 p.m., 2009 Tags: Laura DeAngelis, Matt Dehaemers, Night & Day
What started out as a small record sale to raise funds for Audio Reader has turned into this gigantic annual event that draws folks from all over. Last year, there was a line that stretched from the door of Building 21, and damn near to Harper Street. They had over 12,000 records for sale, as well as DVDs and audio…
Review Studios Exhibition Space presents the solo exhibition of new work by artist Beniah Leuschke. Leuschke says in his artist statement, “I envision my work as a cluster of grapes not grape juice, equal parts granny smith, Smith & Wesson, Wesson oil and Oil of Olay. The Viewer’s interpretation is an important layer of the work, and it creates as…
Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books? They were perfect summer reading. You could opt to attack the ninja on page 4 and skip ahead to page 155 for your blood-soaked demise and the book’s ending. Done and done, right? Tonight from 7 to midnight at the Jones Pool (13th Street and Main, sixth floor), cliffhangerfalls.com premieres its first installment…
As if to prove that the Kennedys aren’t the only dynastic family with a recently deceased patriarch, the new exhibition at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (4420 Warwick Boulevard, 816-753-5784), Wyeth: Three Generations of Artistry, opens today. Andrew Wyeth, the most well-known and most controversial artist of the family, died last January at age 91, but this show widens…
After just one year into its Eric Rosen-led era, the Kansas City Repertory Theatre is spoiling us. Here we have that dark fairy-tale lark Into the Woods, perhaps Stephen Sondheim’s most enchanting work, staged by Tony-nominated Broadway director Moisés Kaufman. Professionally staged Sondheim is rare enough in Kansas City. Better still, this Rep production mixes New York ringers with local…
With the looming lack of food and water, the danger of lightning storms, and the threat of attack by Comanche and Apache Indians, it’s no wonder that a few westbound settlers chose to remain along the banks of Rock Creek during the late 1800s. Recall the simplicity of early northeast Johnson County tonight and tomorrow at the city of Mission’s…
No, no, it’s not Chip and Dale, Disney’s cartoon chipmunks who eat nuts. It’s Chippendales, the international revue in which magnificent specimens of bronzed, brawny men expose just about everything but their … well, they wear modest G-strings to hide those. Since the 1980s, this “mini-Broadway show” — that’s what the promoters call it — has presented “fun and fantasy…
If you’re not into drumming, Wes Faulconer’s shop at 8050 Wornall might have escaped your attention for the past two and a half decades. “We pretty much sell A-to-Z percussion equipment,” Faulconer says, meaning that Explorers Percussion stocks standard rock-and-roll cymbals and drumheads, gear for high-school drumlines, and exotic shakers and skins from Brazil to Africa. The shop has earned…
For most, the name Gary Cooper evokes Marshal Will Kane in High Noon or Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees, but the taciturn screen icon also played his share of soldiers during his 38-year film career. In conjunction with the National Archives, the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial (100 West 26th Street, 816-784-1918) launches “The…
Monday Night Football is back, and you likely have a standing seat at your favorite sports bar. But maybe you’ve recently outgrown your buddies because they live with their parents or still wear carpenter jeans or put the Black Eyed Peas on one too many playlists. In that case, go forth and find yourself some real men.• The Terrace on…
So it doesn’t look like Kansas City will ever land its own pro hockey team. But for one night, we can pretend. This evening, the Sprint Center (1407 Grand) hosts an exhibition game between the Los Angeles Kings and the New York Islanders, who have chosen our humble middle ground for a face-off. Expect all the mad dangle skills and…
Some of modern poetry’s freshest writers came together for the 2007 anthology The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry. Two years later, the book’s contributors are still promoting it — and their art. At 6:30 p.m., the tour stops at the Central Branch of the Kansas City Public Library (14 West 10th Street). On hand: the book’s editor, Francisco Aragón, and…
Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour couldn’t have expected his 2004 album Egypt — proudly devout, musically uncharacteristic and released during Ramadan — to pass without some comment among Muslim compatriots, yet the hagiographic Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love reads like a kind of defense. Playing up the religious opposition to the record, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s first documentary feature follows…
Chris Williamson has a test tomorrow. It’s a Thursday afternoon at the midtown duplex that he shares with his wife, a nurse at KU Medical Center, and Williamson’s college Spanish textbook is laid out on his coffee table. Propped on a stand a few feet away is a Dimebag Darrell-style Dean electric guitar. “Oh, yeah, metal all the way,” says…
If you’re not familiar with The Turnpike, you probably just don’t live far enough west in Kansas. For the uninitiated, the long-running music television program (found on Channel 6 in Lawrence and Channel 42 in Topeka, or archived in full at Lawrence.com/turnpike) is part interview, part live performance and all kinds of awesome, especially because it splits its time pretty…
The music industry isn’t something to be dabbled in by anyone in the company of desperate pseudo-celebrities, much less the self-proclaimed queen of media himself, but Perez Hilton’s first stab at tour promoting isn’t far off the mark. The inaugural Perez Hilton Presents tour brings as headliners indie-queen Ladyhawke and Norwegian rocker-girl Ida Maria. The two acts played together at…
Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne emerge once more from their lower depths. Describing one of their movies describes them all. Their characters are the victims of soggy street-cart food and social disintegration — no God, no family or community infrastructure, no moral compass. Here, it’s Lorna (Arta Dobroshi), an Albanian living with a Belgian junkie, Claudy (Jérémie Renier). Spouse or…
Discovery is at the heart of moviegoing, especially when a filmathon like the Kansas International Film Festival wants you to moviego and go and go. This year’s ninth-annual KIFF runs through next Thursday at the Glenwood Arts (9575 Metcalf in Overland Park; schedule and ticket information at kansasfilm.com). Daring a film that you know nothing about to surprise you is…
Written and directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, who adapted the script from the popular children’s book, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is smart, insightful on a host of relationship dynamics, and filled with fast-paced action. When failed inventor Flint (fantastically voiced by Bill Hader) accidentally creates a machine that makes food fall from the sky, he revamps…
