Rusty Sneary

In its 40th year, the Unicorn Theatre continues its mission of bringing new American plays to Kansas City audiences. Among the themes explored this season are racial identity, family dysfunction, and, with its kickoff production, Venus in Fur, the ever-shifting power dynamic between men and women.

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Carousel is revered by many for its artfully woven tapestry of story, song and dance  -  including Time magazine, which in 1999 named it the best musical of the 20th century. Currently at Kansas City Repertory Theatre is a re-creation of a production that premiered nearly two years ago at a downtown performance space, where Carousel was viscerally staged in a way that both respected the material and deconstructed it to pieces.

For twenty years, Shakespeare in the park has been as reliable a part of a Kansas City summer as the heat and humidity.