Spring Break
A German, transsexual, would-be rock star trapped in a small Kansas town in the glam rock era of David Bowie sounds like culture shock at its best. Steven Eubank's production of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" provides just that, and more. As the audience filtered into the Off Center Theatre at Crown Center, they entered the world of Hedwig, a young male-to-female, post-operative transsexual who fled East Berlin while the Berlin Wall still stood.
I am making a new law. Let's call it the "Law of Diminishing Shorts." This law will state that any film featuring Will Ferrell in '70s-style basketball shorts, that is, short shorts, cannot try to be serious. Ever. So let it be written, so let it be done. Such is the central flaw of Ferrell's latest 1970s farce "Semi-Pro.
Hummus is one of the easiest and most endlessly variable foods to make. It is a classic dip and spread most people have encountered at least once in their lives. Hummus is a valuable snack and even a light meal when it is eaten with vegetables and crumbled feta cheese.
"New Amerykah," by Erykah Badu, is the future of R&B. I was convinced I wasn't ready. Not since Sly & The Family Stone records graced store shelves have we heard such a bombastic statement of the genre's potential, and the contemporary Erykah Badu example is especially ironic, given her career that has basically been thrust into the realm of irrelevance after the hit duet "You Got Me" with the Roots at the turn of the century.
In honor of Women's History Month, the Women's Center showed the film "Iron Jawed Angels," on March 4. The movie was based on true events concerning women suffragettes. Alice Paul was an activist and organizer who believed women would never be given the right to vote, they had to demand it.
Pulitzer-prize winner Natasha Trethewey's euphonic voice floated over the crowd gathered to hear her on Thursday night. Trethewey read selections from her Pulitzer-winning book "Native Guard." She spoke of a deep and conflicted love for the South and her home state of Mississippi.
Comedian Tommy Johnagin had his audience laughing right from the start - not an easy task in the dispersive Pierson Auditorium. With excellent timing and a decidedly personal approach, he gave an intimate, late-night feeling to the hour-long show. His material skirted the edge of full-blown dark - stories often dealing with death and funerals, as well as the usual problems of love, family and work.
I hate it when the term "literate" is applied to a rock band, as if the only letters most bands can read are A through G. However, The Mountain Goats happen to be one of the least illiterate, most prolific rock bands of the past couple decades. By the count of allmusic.
To celebrate Women in Jazz month, the Blue Room jazz club kicked off the week last Monday night with a four-hour jam session featuring Millie Edwards and her group the Wild Women of Kansas City, and various local jazz artists. The month is meant to celebrate the women who have paved the way for the contemporary female jazz singers of today.
Some marigolds, a robbery at stick point, a fourth set of nuptials- all seemingly unrelated themes played out in the 13th Annual Women's Playwriting Festival on Friday, March 7. The festival is sponsored by Potluck productions, a company founded to promote the progress of emerging female playwrights.
What do you get when you put a world-famous opera singer and students from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance performing opera arias in one room together? No, you don't get a funny punch line; you get a master class with baritone Sherrill Milnes.
Tuesday, March 11 Noontime Concert at the Plaza: The Kansas City Symphony performs at noon at the Kansas City Public Library, Plaza Branch, 4801 Main St. "Medievalism High and Low: The Violette in Early 19th Century Musical Drama": This part of the Conservatory musicology lecture series starts at 4 p.
