There are performance legends, and then there’s Dolly Parton, who, at 70 years old, can and will outperform anyone else. She doesn’t need constant costume changes or elaborate stage sets with LCD screens. Last night at the Sprint Center, Parton singularly was a well-rehearsed, pure entertainer. She told dozens of stories and jokes, singing, and playing multiple instruments (piano, penny…
For a little more than a year, GUILDit has been hosting forums that focus on the business side of being an artist. The idea is to exchange strategies and learn ways to overcome challenges of arts entrepreneurship. The next one is from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, July 28, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (4420 Warwick). The presenters…
In theaters July 29.KC Chiefs Training Camp Kick-Off3:30-6 p.m. Saturday, July 304525 Downs Dr., St. JosephMetro Pro Wrestling: The War to End it AllJeremy Wyatt vs. Michael Strider 7 p.m. Saturday, July 30Turner Rec Center831 S. 55th St., KCKMartin Lawrence8 p.m. Saturday, July 30Sprint Center1407 GrandSporting KC vs. Portland Timbers2 p.m. Sunday, July 31Children’s Mercy ParkOne Sporting Way, KCKBrunch &…
Perhaps mindful of its reputation as a tool of the ultra-right Koch brothers, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce is using a political action committee with a name meant to evoke flags, soda fountains and hardware stores with creaky floors.Voters who live in Kansas Senate District 11 recently received a mailer from MAIN Street Kansas criticizing John Skubal, an Overland Park…
Thursday 7.28Matthew Macfadyen’s self-righteous detective inspector Reid retired to the seaside with his daughter at the end of Ripper Street Season 3, so it’s a bit of a surprise to find him back in 1897 Whitechapel at the start of Season 4, which premieres tonight on BBC America. For a period piece, Ripper Street features lots of modern storytelling conventions…
Occupation: Supplemental instruction leader for Dr. Jim Sheppard’s Foundations of Philosophy class at UMKC. (I’m a TA, of sorts.) I also manage a grassroots feminist organization in town called Squad of Sisters, a group of leaders dedicated to combating sexual violence in Kansas City. Instagram handle: @helkatproctor Hometown: Kansas City. I love where I live. Current neighborhood: The historic NortheastWhat…
Seven men and women wearing shorts and tennis shoes collect around a black Lincoln SUV at Hawthorne Plaza, a shopping center in Overland Park. It’s 4:30 on a recent Thursday afternoon, and from a distance they look like a group of Royals fans consolidating into one vehicle before heading out to Kauffman Stadium.John Skubal is wearing a Royals cap, but…
If you’re looking for a statehouse race with Kansas-like intensity on the Missouri side of the border, eastern Jackson County is your destination.There you’ll find Democratic state Rep. John Rizzo raking in five-figure donations and introducing himself and his family to the entire metropolitan area through TV ads — a rare luxury in a race for a state Senate seat.You’ll…
Open a ramen shop in the Midwest, and you’re subject to the ignorant suspicion of two constituencies.One puzzled group consists of recovering undergrads for whom the word “ramen” inexorably conjures 25-cent Styrofoam cups of frizzy noodles and freeze-dried shrimp, and who loudly balk at paying many bits more than that for the good stuff. The other, much smaller group is…
The beginning of Fringe feels like the start of a race. The flag has dropped, and we’re off, speeding through limited opportunities to see certain shows, dictated by performance days and times, which often overlap, and hindered by the occasional sellout. The festival runs through Sunday, July 31. Here’s what we’ve seen so far. Strong direction and unexpected humor make…
Sincerely Yours, a guest-curated exhibition showcasing three Charlotte Street residents at Paragraph Gallery, sets its sights on raw honesty. And, cloying title notwithstanding, the show works, allowing each of its participants ample opportunity to demonstrate how to defeat the contemporary oppressions of irony.Lucas Wetzel’s “Cover Letters” uses writing — pithy observational fragments, really — to lay a finger on the…
The annual KC Nanobrew Festival just can’t stay put. The homebrew festival, now in its seventh year, is on the move, to a much bigger space, the 17-acre Berkley Riverfront Park. Saturday’s festival — from 2 to 6 p.m. — is a testament to Kansas City’s evolving beer scene, and to the work of organizers Chad Cummings, Chad Moats, Frank…
Dolly PartonDolly Parton is a national treasure. The rhinestone-studded star of country music — who, at 70, is looking better than most of us do at 30 — could be doing a lot of other things this summer, but she’s opted to give America the greatest possible gift: herself. She’s plowing her way through more than 60 dates on the…
Broncho’s new album, Double Vanity, may not have the commercial appeal of its predecessor, Just Hip Enough to Be Woman. It’s dense, layered and droning and yet still manages to engage with hooks beneath the reverb. No matter its commercial viability, Double Vanity rewards with multiple listens. The Pitch spoke by phone with Broncho’s guitarist and singer, Ryan Lindsey, about…
It’s been almost a year since Natasha Goellner closed her namesake confectionery, Natasha’s Mulberry & Mott, and left the Country Club Plaza. Now, she’s selling sweets from a truck that might not have fit in her old shop.“It’s too big, really,” Goellner says of the rehabbed Faultless Linen truck her father, George Goellner, helped her find. It houses her latest…
The guys behind 99 Hops House, the new beer bar and restaurant inside the Argosy Casino (777 Northwest Argosy Casino Parkway, Riverside), take beer seriously. Servers are required to pass the Cicerone program’s certified beer-server test. General manager Eric Flanagan, a certified cicerone, has been training his wait staff on beer pairings as well as styles. When we sit down,…
Once a year, the Phoenix closes Eighth Street between Broadway and Central — a stretch known as Scamps Alley, for the legends who epitomized Kansas City-style jazz and played the piano bar for years. This is Phoenix Fest, and its seventh such celebration, this weekend, brings its mix of music indoors and outside. The party starts in the afternoon and…
When you’re in a Paris bistro and someone asks you, “Comment ça va?,” you nod your head or turn up an affirmative thumb. You’re in Paris, after all, so the answer to the question “How’s it going?” is probably a positive one. When you’re running the Westport bistro called Ça Va and someone inquires after your mood, you might have…
Thursday 7.28Tonight, enjoy wine and small plates on the Terrace at the Overland Park Arboretum (8909 West 179th Street), part of the venue’s summer wine-tasting series. Tonight’s tasting features wines from Middle Creek Winery (Louisburg) and snacks from Dean & DeLuca. Tickets are $25. If you are not a Friends of the Arboretum member, an additional $3 park entrance fee…
An atheists group has filed a federal lawsuit over $65,000 the City of Kansas City, Missouri, pledged in advance of the National Baptist Convention at Bartle Hall.On Friday, American Atheists Inc. filed suit in U.S. District Court arguing that the city acted unconstitutionally when, in April, it passed an ordinance authorizing a $65,000 payment to Modest Miles Ministries from the…
“Lookin’ for revenge.” Those words from Drake’s “Summer Sixteen,” the song and the name of this tour trek, opened Saturday night’s sold-out Sprint Center show as the Canadian rapper and singer rose from a secret passage in the stage floor to fireworks and flames. Drake, the superstar, came out with an intensity and a seeming hunger for vengeance, cutting down…
A bankruptcy court judge in Houston has ordered Joel Tucker, brother of payday-lending magnate Scott Tucker, to report to jail.In March, the judge, Marvin Isgur, ordered Tucker to provide information about allegedly fraudulent payday loan claims. Tucker asked to be released from federal custody so that he could locate the relevant documents.Isgur has decided that Tucker is playing games. In…
Kiss with Caleb JohnsonSilverstein Eye Centers ArenaJuly 20Kiss opened with “Detroit Rock City” on Wednesday night, and as Paul Stanley sang “I feel so good, I’m so alive,” he flexed his right bicep. Stanley had surgery to reattach the bicep tendon before the current Freedom to Rock tour began; the scar was visible on the video boards. It will take…
A Jackson County jury agreed with the Missouri attorney general that a home-buying program in Kansas City was a scam.Attorney General Chris Koster’s office filed suit against a company called Tri-State Holdings and two men associated with the business, Brandon Miller and Tony Caldwell. The state alleged that Tri-State, Miller and Caldwell obtained upfront payments on real-estate contracts, then failed…
