Kansas City was Robert Altman’s hometown, but when he returned here in 1995 to make a period jazz noir, he fell ill and turned out something less than another McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Producer Matthew Seig recalls the production as “cursed,” according to Mitchell Zuckoff’s new book about the director. Kathryn Reed Altman (Altman’s widow), Kansas City co-writer Frank Barhydt…
Write what you know, goes the adage, and it’s what most writers end up doing. Politics is a subject in which playwright Beau Willimon is well-versed. He worked on campaigns for Sens. Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton and Bill Bradley and Gov. Howard Dean. No doubt, the personalities and situations that Willimon encountered filter into his play Farragut North. The show,…
Turn On the Heat, the annual benefit for the Arts Incubator — a Crossroads nonprofit that helps emerging artists kick development into gear with workshops, consulting and studio space — has emerged as an impressive KC social event in recent years. Development director Mary Wetzel says the Incubator expects some 500 people to show up tonight. There’s the chef-customized chili,…
Origami dates back millennia, but it wasn’t until the last century that enterprising minds and nimble fingers took paper folding light-years beyond decorative cranes and ornamental fans. As demonstrated in Vanessa Gould’s documentary Between the Folds — screening at 2 p.m. today at the Kansas City Public Library’s Plaza Branch (4801 Main) — origami is now practiced by artists, mathematicians…
It’s fair to say that the Lenexa Community Center (13420 Oak) doesn’t evoke the stately traditions of Great Britain the way Buckingham Palace does. But for the Daughters of the British Empire in Kansas, the location is fit for a queen — or several, depending on who shows up for afternoon tea at the local DBE chapter’s annual British Faire…
Need to get your Betty Draper on? Head to Donna’s Dress Shop (1410 West 39th Street, 816-931-0022) today, when the boutique that’s based on wearable vintage holds a time-traveling cocktail party. Expect a sizable range of dresses, both new and from decades past, plus a collection of ’50s and ’60s jewelry designed to create an accessories shop good enough for…
If there’s no business like show business, then it stands to reason that there aren’t any tunes like show tunes. And if there aren’t any tunes like show tunes, then there’s no karaoke like show-tunes karaoke. But consider that it’s nearly impossible to find anything from West Side Story, let alone Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, in those song-list binders. So…
Kansas City’s sports scene is dead. The Royals and the Chiefs are national jokes, and the Sprint Center is without a regular tenant, unless one defines “watching a number of clowns departing a Volkswagen at the circus” as a sport. Thankfully, hope springs from an unlikely source: the Independence Events Center (19100 East Valley View Parkway), home of new hockey…
How’s this for ambition? In tonight’s premiere of his play 1937: One Hell of a Year, writer-director Bill Clause — a local force at KKFI 90.1, CrossCurrents and the Fringe Festival — isn’t just spinning a large-casted story of Kansas City’s racial, social and labor history, featuring everyone from Pendergast to hobos to African-American union leader A. Phillip Randolph to…
It’s been more than 12 years since gifted singer Jeff Buckley died, but his legend continues to grow. Recent Buckley references in pop culture have included an interpretation of his interpretation of the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah” on American Idol and a Scarlett Johansson take on his “Last Goodbye.” These two and many more from his too-small catalog — he…
Ratified in Missouri on August 29, 1933, the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, effectively ending Prohibition and giving drink slingers the green light to serve again. Cheers to these local institutions that have been going at it for the past 70-plus years. • Davey’s Uptown Rambler’s Club (3402 Main, 816-753-1909): First located at 3535 Broadway in 1933, Davey’s took…
On a gray, blustery Friday afternoon, there are few places in Kansas City lonelier than the 3 Trails recycling center. At one of three drop-off sites operated by Bridging the Gap, a local environmental advocacy organization, trailer-sized Dumpsters make up a lonely island in an axle-cracking, potholed parking lot that guards empty storefronts. A few cars dodge the splotches of…
Author Andrew Smith likes Kansas City so much, he’s coming back! Prolific author and lecturer Andrew F. Smith, who was in town earlier this year to talk about his book Hamburger: A Global History, returns to Kansas City tomorrow to talk up his new book, Eating America: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine. Smith speaks at the…
Jonathan Conklin was the victim of this morning’s homicide. Kansas City police found Conklin, who they say is 23-years-old and from KCMO, shot to death in a backyard in the 3100 block of East 12th Street after 2 a.m. Conklin was pronounced dead at the scene. Categories: News Tags: homicide, Jonathan Conklin, Kansas City, kansas city
Dear Rock and Roll Scene: Hi. Nick here. While I was at first amused by the notion of rockers stripping down to their birthday suits and making a video, I have begun to lose interest. It’s not that this is played out — I am just tired of seeing your genitals. I am comfortable neither with seeing Hunx’s penis used…
Give us this day our daily breading So, culinary detectives, where is this place that breads its birds daily? Categories: Dining, Food & Drink Tags: Where it it?
Frustrated by the lack of activity at Antioch Center, Northland representatives want to put pressure on the shopping center’s erstwhile redeveloper. Eastbourne Investments, the aging mall’s Canadian owner, put forward a plan in 2004 to remake the mall with taxpayer assistance. The City Council approved a deal in which tax-increment financing (TIF) and other public sources would cover half of…
Coalesce not only released the amazing OX earlier this year, they planned the followup OXEP as a continuation of the full-length’s brutal roar. In other words, these aren’t b-sides or leftovers that were released yesterday. This is an honest-to-goodness new release. As the band puts it: These songs are not cuts that didn’t make ox. We wrote and recorded these…
Update (3:43 p.m. Wednesday, November 11): Kansas City police say they caught the homicide suspect from earlier this afternoon. They arrested 20-year-old Darrell Rodgers on a Jackson County warrant for first-degree murder near 40th and Benton. ***A car chase between the Kansas City police and a homicide suspect this afternoon ended with a crash near 42nd and Wayne. View Larger…
%{}% If we can’t all agree that Florida looks like a penis, then the divisions in this country are way too deep. Teacher Ryan Haraughty was fired from from Mission Valley Middle School after drawing a map of the United States with a plump, penis-like Florida and making an off-hand remark about the state’s level of excitement. Go figure middle…
If a few drinks make you animated, just imagine what a few drinks based on animation might do. The Simpsons Archive Web site has noted the appearance of actual Duff Beer on shelves in Spain, Italy, Germany and Belgium. Duff is the fictional beer brand, not seen on store shelves for close to a decade following 20th Century Fox’s successful…
If men could give birth, there would be a birth-control soft drink by now. When it comes to health care, anything that affects the wang becomes a national priority. That’s why the latest news on Bisphenol A is a good thing for all concerned. According to an article on ABC News, the chemical commonly found in clear plastic has been…
