The title of Alex Garland’s new Ex Machina tells you quite a bit about the movie’s chilly perspective. If the phrase resonates for you, it’s because you learned a bit about classical Greek theater at some point, in particular its deus ex machina, or “god from the machine.” In a play, it’s really little more than a way for an…
Two milestones mark the opening of Alfred Uhry’s The Last Night of Ballyhoo: the beginning of World War II and the premiere of Gone With the Wind. That the latter ultimately has more bearing on the plot tells you a little about Uhry and a lot about the family at the heart of his play. Uhry’s contemporary comedy follows the…
John Dean isn’t drinking a beer. Dean, the 48-year-old brewmaster and co-owner of Topeka’s Blind Tiger Brewery & Restaurant, sips tea from a plastic cup. But there’s no missing him: Dean has met me at a table in the compoundlike brewery and restaurant (at 417 Southwest 37th Street, in Topeka), having chosen for us a table surrounded by oversized photos…
Back in 2007, the Church of Scientology bought a historic building across the street from the Kansas City Star’s headquarters. The Star, which at the time leased space in the City National Bank Building, at 1801 Grand, for its advertising functions, covered the transaction on the front page of the March 17, 2007, business section. According to that story, Kansas…
The Boulevardia lineup is in! Over three days in June in the West Bottoms, Boulevard Brewing Co. is pairing bunches of beer with music from local and national acts. The big names include Mayer Hawthorne, J. Roddy Walston & the Business, the Mowgli’s and Atlas Genius, among others. Full lineup after the jump. Friday, June 19 Outsides In The Valley…
St. Louis’ 4 Hands Brewing Co. is making really good beers, in particular War Hammer Imperial IPA. I got to try this hop bomb at the Lupulin Carnival when it was released last month, and I became a fan of this double IPA’s tropical fruit pop. If that sounds good to you, then you’ll want to be at Local Pig…
Graham Nash – of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young fame – has just announced a new tour. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer stops at the Uptown on Saturday, July 25. Tickets go on sale Saturday, May 2, at 10 a.m. Purchase here. Categories: Music Tags: concert announcement, crosby stills nash & young, graham nash, incoming, just announced, uptown
One of the hottest culinary tickets in Kansas City goes on sale tomorrow. The Farm Table Dinners — hosted from May through October on the grounds of the local award-winning cheese-making farm, just north of Weston, Missouri — will be prepared by 15 of Kansas City’s best-known chefs. Each meal features a sampling of the Green Dirt Farm cheeses, passed hors…
In support of last year’s full-length, This is M.E., Melissa Etheridge has just announced a slew of concert dates this summer – including nine with Blondie. Sadly, Kansas City doesn’t get the exciting double-bill, as Etheridge’s solo leg stops at the Uptown on Wednesday, June 24. Tickets go on sale Friday, April 24, at 10 a.m. Purchase here. Categories: Music Tags:…
Charli XCX and Bleachers’ Jack Antanoff sound like an odd pairing, but it’s hard to get mad at the double-headlining tour the two have just announced. On Saturday, August 8, the two artists stop at Starlight Theatre on their “Charli and Jack do America” tour. Los Angeles act Børns will open. Tickets on sale Friday, April 24, at noon. Purchase…
In not-altogether shocking news out of Kansas yesterday, budget analysts announced that revenue estimates were being revised downward, and the state will have to find about $400 million over the next few years. From the Star: The latest revenue outlook revealed a deepening budget hole that will test a conservative Legislature’s no-tax willpower when it reconvenes next week. With Kansas’…
The taproom inside Whole Foods’ soon-to-open Olathe store isn’t quite finished. Saws whir. Nail guns fire metal into wood. But most of the 12 tap handles are in place, and the local kegs are on the way. “I think the expectation was that Boulevard would be the bulk of our taps,” says Ben Rose, who works for Whole Foods’ regional…
Bishop Robert Finn is finally out. Pope Francis has reportedly accepted Finn’s resignation. Finally. In September 2012, Finn was convicted on a misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse and received two years of probation. That conviction stemmed from Finn’s shielding priest Shawn Ratigan, who was found to be keeping sexual images of young girls on a laptop in 2010….
If you know Q like we know Q — Kieu (pronounced Q) Cao, the owner of the one-month-old Q Hot Pot restaurant at 8610 N.W. Prairie View Road in Zona Rosa — you would understand why the Vietnamese native, raised and educated in Boston, might be a little homesick in the Midwest for the culinary traditions of her past. “I…
Earlier this year, the liberal advocacy group Progress Missouri — we’re fans — provided a noble and important public service that also happened to be hilarious, when one of its staffers attended a lobbyist-funded dinner for lawmakers at a Jefferson City country club and photographed and live-streamed House members cramming saffron sea bass and honey miso chicken into their jowly faces….
Country super-trio Lady Antebellum has just announced a North American tour in support of last year’s full-length, 747. The “Wheels Up Tour” follows the Grammy Award-winning group from a slew of dates in Australia and Europe. The band stops at the Cricket Wireless Amphitheater on Friday, August 21, with support from Hunter Hayes. Tickets go on sale Friday, April 24,…
Regular Pitch readers know that key elements of the ongoing criminal tax case against Mission Hills businesswoman Cheryl Womack rest on how the government obtained evidence against her. Womack remains under an indictment issued by a federal grand jury in 2013 that accuses the self-made millionaire of misleading government investigators about her income and her taxes. Ever since Womack almost…
Nick Spacek hits a handful of local record stores on Record Store Day. Saturday’s forecast wasn’t so much about chances of rain as absolute guarantees thereof. Anyone hoping not to be thunderstormed upon was woefully (and wrongfully) optimistic. At 8 a.m., Love Garden owner Kelly Corcoran handed out numbers to those waiting in line at just a little before 8, reasoning…
Clay Chastain wants a Jackson County Circuit Court judge to hurry and take a look at his lawsuit to take Kansas City Mayor Sly James off the ballot, but already he’s off to a slow start. Chastain, a distant third-place finisher in the April 7 mayoral primary election, sued on Wednesday claiming that James was delinquent on his taxes, and…
