Notice anything different about Kansas City’s theater scene lately? Theater League is once again producing shows here.
Blue Man Group headlined Theater League’s return to the area in mid-December. Its next big show is “An Evening with Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin,” at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts Jan 17-22. For ticket information call 816-994-7222 or visit www.theaterleague.org.
Kansas City native and Theater League Executive Director Mark Edelman is happy to be presenting Broadway shows again in his hometown. He founded Theater League in 1976. It is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt, community-based performing arts organization dedicated to the development of professional theater, both as a cultural and an educational resource. Serving its constituent communities by producing and presenting Broadway musicals, plays and new works in local performing arts centers, Theater League has more than 30,000 members who subscribe to its cultural offerings in eight cities across the country.
Edelman and Theater League produced Broadway shows here for almost 30 years. Then Broadway Across American, a big dog in the theater industry, became interested in the area, and outbid the local non-profit organization for the privilege of producing shows at the Music Hall in 2006. Theater League’s last season here was 2006-2007.
“I had pushed renovating the Music Hall because the theater was not capable of accommodating shows like ‘Wicked’ and some of the big things that were coming out. I probably pushed a little hard and I think I irritated some people with the city,” Edelman said.
Edelman said he now knows he “unreasonably assumed” that since Theater League had produced shows at the Music Hall for 30 years, it would just be logical to stick with what works.
“But that’s not how it works in politics,” he said.
It certainly wasn’t a happy experience for him, but as he puts it, “you go on.”
The Theater League did just that. By then it had expanded to seven other cities — Mesa and Phoenix in Arizona; Santa Barbara and Thousand Oaks in California; South Bend, Ind.; Toledo, Ohio; and Wichita, Kan. — so the organization concentrated all its efforts in those places.
Kauffman opens
While the Music Hall continues to be the exclusive domain of Broadway Across America, as the Kauffman was being built Edelman saw an opportunity to begin presenting shows here again, where he has maintained his permanent residence. The Kauffman was already committed to the symphony, the ballet and the opera, but that still left three or four weeks in the year for other events. Edelman went after those dates.
Not only did he make an agreement with the Kauffman Center, he chose to seek out his old adversary, Broadway Across America, and suggested the two organizations present a season together.
This is not an official partnership because Broadway Across America is a for-profit company and Theater League in not for profit. As Edelman explains it, Theater League is cooperating on a Broadway series combining Broadway Across America’s presentations at the Music Hall and Theater League’s shows at the Kauffman.”
He thinks the arrangement works.
“This gets the Broadway subscriber to come over to this brand new gorgeous theater at the Kauffman to see shows that are a little more esoteric than the Music Hall. The Music Hall is the place for the blockbuster like ‘Jersey Boys’ and ‘Wicked’ and the Kauffman is the place for more intimate, but still very successful, Broadway productions,” he said.
Edelman believes the union has been successful so far.
“We increased the subscription count that Broadway Across America had by 60 percent in this first year. So I think everybody is happy with how it went,” Edelman said. “Of course our patrons are also getting a world-class theatrical experience at the Kauffman, which I’m sure was a big part of the attraction.”
He’s excited about this whole inaugural season at the Kauffman, especially “Million Dollar Quartet,” (March 20-25) and “Next to Normal,” (June 5-10).
“ ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ closed on Broadway but is re-opening in New York. It’s about a night in 1956 when Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash all got together in the Sun Records in Memphis. It’s about their relationship and they sing all these great songs. These guys are so talented and they sound like the young versions of these four guys and it’s just a rollicking good time,” he said.
The Kauffman portion of the Broadway season closes with “Next to Normal,” which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2010.
“It is in fact a musical about a somewhat dysfunctional family,” Edelman said. “I know that sounds sad, but it’s gripping, it’s funny, it’s certainly poignant and it’s true to life and that’s one of the important things about the theater. It’s a great show.”
He said it certainly wasn’t a happy experience to get that call when he learned Theater League was not getting its contract renewed at the Music Hall. But overall it’s been fun to do what he does. He’s also really enjoyed the challenge of presenting at the Kauffman this season.
“It’s like opening a mini new business for us. The bottom line is always the same. Are we enhancing the quality life in these communities with theater? Are we contributing to the experience of living in a place by providing this resource? If we can say yes to that, it’s the same great experience.”
Theater League’s beginnings
Edelman has always enjoyed theater and started out in the business young, first as a volunteer assistant stage manager for The Barn players, “moving around sets and props” and being a part of the JCC’s old Resident Theatre’s production of “Our Town” in 1977. As a performer, he played in his high school rock band, Changin’ Times. He continues to play on occasion with Guns ‘n Charoses along with his brother, Alan Edelman, the associate executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City.
While in college as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis majoring in theater, he started promoting plays and concerts.
He continued to stay active in the theater community while he attended law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. During that time he put on concerts and speeches at the Music Hall. The first show he presented, in 1976, was “National Lampoon Lemmings,” an Off-Broadway revue which sold old.
“I remember partying with the group at the apartment I lived at, at 44th and Walnut. The cast was Chevy Chase, John Belushi and Chris Guest,” Edelman said.
About that same time he had spent a summer in New York volunteering for Lawyers Volunteer for the Arts.
“I was interested in not just the law but also arts organizations, not-for-profit law and the performing arts. That segued into founding a non-profit organization called Theater League,” he said.
Edelman said the first Broadway show Theater League produced was “Grease” in 1977 at the Lyric. Its first full season was 1977-78.
“The keystone of that season was a three-week engagement of ‘The Chorus Line,’ which was somewhat unprecedented not just for Kansas City but for the road, the touring markets around the country. ‘Chorus Line’ marked a renaissance in the life of the road and the new trend to create subscription audiences after the model of symphonies and opera and ballet. I was there at the beginning,” he said.
