Nunsensations
by Dan Goggin
directed by Therese Riley

Nunsensations is zany…witty…daffy…unusually poignant … and still family-friendly. —Saint Paul Pioneer Press

KANSAS CITY PREMIER! Those zany Sisters are back in one of the funniest of all the Nunsense series of plays. Nunsensation! The Nunsense Vegas Revue takes the sisters on a brand new adventure. When a parishioner volunteers to donate $10,000 to the sisters' school if they will perform in a club in Las Vegas, Mother Superior is hesistant to accept. However, after being convinced by the other sisters that "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" Reverend Mother agrees. What follows is the most feather-filled, sequin-studded, fan dancing Nunsense show ever! Performing in "The Pump Room" at the Mystique Motor Lodge, the sisters experience "show-biz" like never before. You'll meet Sin-City Sue, find out who's Black and White with Her Money on Red, and try to win a new car with the "Holy Rollers Giant Slot Machine." Taking a line from another show, a critic pointed out, "It's a whole lot funny and a little bit naughty, but there ain't nothin' dirty goin' on!"

Performances are scheduled for August 10, 11, 17, 18, 19*, 24, and 25, 2007. Our Sunday matinee begins at 2:00 PM and all other shows begin at 8:00 PM.

The Diary of Anne Frank
by Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett, Newly adapted by Wendy Kesselman
directed by Darren Sextro

Undeniably moving. It shatters the heart. The evening never lets us forget the inhuman darkness waiting to claim its incandescently human heroine. — NY Times

…new DIARY is chillingly honest about the Holocaust. Wendy Kesselman's work has restored the terror.— NY Daily News

In this transcendently powerful new adaptation by Wendy Kesselman, Anne Frank emerges from history a living, lyrical, intensely gifted young girl, who confronts her rapidly changing life and the increasing horror of her time with astonishing honesty, wit and determination. An impassioned drama about the lives of eight people hiding from the Nazis in a concealed storage attic, The Diary of Anne Frank captures the claustrophobic realities of their daily existence—their fear, their hope, their laughter, their grief. Each day of these two dark years, Anne's voice shines through: "When I write I shake off all my cares. But I want to achieve more than that. I want to be useful and bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death." This is a new adaptation for a new generation.

Performances are scheduled for October 5, 6, 12, 13, 14*, 19, and 20, 2007. Our Sunday matinee begins at 2:00 PM and all other shows begin at 8:00 PM.

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde
by Moisés Kaufman
directed by Eric Magnus

A triumph…truth, purity, and simplicity suffuse [this] thoroughly engrossing new play…sweeps away cobwebs and distortions, allowing complex, credible human beings to emerge from history — Washington Post

His style was his umbrella, his armor, his all-purpose defense system, and for many years it seemed to shelter Oscar Wilde most effectively. There came a moment, however, in 1895 when the playwright was betrayed by his own wit, after which he would never again be able to gain control of his life. In the absolutely gripping GROSS INDECENCY: THE THREE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE, written and directed with a scintillating style of its own by Moisés Kaufman, that moment is identified with such startling precision and clarity that it feels like the inexorable moment of reversal in a classic tragedy — NY Times

In early 1895, the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Wilde's young lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, left a card at Wilde's club bearing the phrase "posing somdomite." Wilde sued the Marquess for criminal libel. The defense denounced Wilde's art and literature as immoral, leading the prosecuting attorney to declare, "It would appear that what is on trial is not Lord Queensberry but Mr. Wilde's art!" In the end Queensberry was acquitted, and evidence that had been gathered against Wilde compelled the Crown to prosecute him for "gross indecency with male persons." With Wilde's arrest, his hit plays running in London's West End were forced to close, and Wilde was reduced to penury. A second trial ended in a hung jury with Wilde's impassioned defense of "the love that dare not speak its name," prompting a third trial. In the third and decisive trial, Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment at hard labor. He was separated forever from his wife and children, and wrote very little for the rest of his life. In addition to Wilde, Douglas and Queensberry, characters ranging from Queen Victoria to London's rent boys, to a present-day academic are assembled to explore how history is made and how it can be so timely revisited in the theatre.

Performances are scheduled for January 18, 19, 25, 26, 27*, February 1, and 2, 2008. Our Sunday matinee begins at 2:00 PM and all other shows begin at 8:00 PM.

Little Me
Book by Neil Simon
Lyrics by Carolyn Leigh
Music by Cy Coleman
Based on a novel by Patrick Dennis
Musical numbers and dances staged by Bob Fosse
directed by Shelly Stewart

If Broadway ever erects a monument to the patron saint of laughter, Neil Simon would have to be it — Time Magazine

Little Me tells of the poorest girl on Drifter’s Row, Belle Poitrine (née Schlumpfert). Belle lives with her Momma – a “nurse” at the Red Light Hospital – but dreams of life on Quality Hill. She meets Noble Eggleston, captain of the football, baseball, boxing, debating and tumbling teams, and knows he is the only man for her. His mother thinks otherwise, but Belle spends her life trying to win Noble, the greatest love of her life. Along the way she also spends time with an 80-year old skinflint, Mr Pinchley, the self proclaimed world’s greatest entertainer, Val du Val, short-sighted U S Marine Fred Poitrine, Prince Cherney of Rozenzweig and the arrogant film director, Otto Schnitzler. Each romance ends in a bizarre, accidental death and Belle’s further advancement in society. She becomes a Hollywood star and a Countess, but still longs for Noble, who is by now both a Harvard and Yale graduate, an Air Force Colonel, and Governor of North and South Dakota, to name but a few. Will they find each other at the right time in the right place? Can they live happily ever after, after all?

Performances are scheduled for March 14, 15, 16*, 21, 22, 28, and 29, 2008. Our Sunday matinee begins at 2:00 PM and all other shows begin at 8:00 PM.

Crossing Delancey
by Susan Sandler
directed by Nancy Eppert

An amusing romance ... that tells its unpretentious story believably, rarely trying to make its gag lines, of which there are many, upstage its narration or outshine its heart — N.Y. Times

A warm and loving .... addition to the growing body of Jewish dramatic work in this country — Jewish Post and Opinion

Isabel is a modern young woman who lives alone and works in a book shop. When she is not pining after a handsome author, she is visiting her grandmother in Manhattan's Lower East Side. This delightfully nosey old lady and her friend the matchmaker have found a "good catch" for Isabel Sam, the handsome pickle vendor. The end of the play is really a beginning, ripe with possibilities for Isabel and Sam.

Performances are scheduled for May 9, 10, 16, 17, 18*, 23, and 24, 2008. Our Sunday matinee begins at 2:00 PM and all other shows begin at 8:00 PM.