The Scoop
6:00 – 7:30PM Pre-Event Reception at Cara & Cabezas Contemporary
- 1714 Holmes Street, KCMO 64108
8:00 PM Main Event: Opening night performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel at The Living Room
- 1818 McGee Street, KCMO 64108
- General admission seating
- Doors open at 7:30
- Catering by Michael Wyatt
Google Map from Pre-Event to Main Event
6:00 Arts Alive Pre-Event
Cara and Cabeza Contemporary present
Victor Cartagena Caras y Cabezas +
Reason’s Monsters (after Goya): etchings by Nicholas Naughton
Cartagena’s exhibition title translates to “Faces and Heads.” The title and content of this exhibition of monoprints directly reflects the vision of gallery owner and director, Paulo Acosta Cabezas, to share artwork that is not only aesthetically dynamic (the face) but also addresses intellectual and emotional concerns (the head).
While Cartagena’s monoprints reference the origins of conflict, Nicholas Naughton’s series of etchings illustrate the cycle of conflict and war throughout history. Borrowing from Goya’s Disaster of War series that documented Goya’s own vision of the violent drama of a ongoing war between Spain and France as well as other current events of the time, Naughton appropriated scense from the contemporary media. The images are familiar to us: they come from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as other violent events in recent years. By conflating Goya’s compositions with images from today’s media, Naughton connects our present to the past and shows that history does indeed repeat itself.
Victor Cartagena, Mujer de Verde en Mi Cabeza, 2008, monoprint & Chine-collé
Nicholas Naughton, Waiting for evac, 2009, etching
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8:00PM Main Event
Opening Night Performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel at The Living Room
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Where does Kansas City Repertory’s Associate Artistic Director Kyle Hatley go when he wants to do some experimental theatre work in a smaller format? He goes to The Living Room theatre in the Crossroads District. He will be joined by a partner in crime, Eryn M. Preston ( aka Music Director), another talented KC Repertory cohort.
For those familiar with the 1956 Hollywood version of Carousel, we know that CAROUSEL tells the late 19th century story of swaggering carnival barker Billy Bigelow who unexpectedly falls in love with and marries a sweet, innocent millworker Julie Jordan. As soon as they marry, their lives take a serious turn for the worst. CAROUSEL features memorable songs such as “June is Bustin’ Out All Over,” “If I Loved You,” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” But underlying those beautiful tunes and lyrics is a dark story involving domestic abuse, a robbery gone wrong, suicide, social stigmas and redemption. 1956 Hollywood couldn’t handle the truth of those themes, and several scenes were eliminated or rewritten to brighten the story. Kyle’s revival of CAROUSEL takes a much more contemporary approach. With an intentionally minimalist approach to set and costume design, this CAROUSEL focuses the mind and eye on the core of story. Unlike movie version, this revival does not substitute a happier ending or rewrite scenes to protect the viewer’s sensibilities. CAROUSEL is Rogers and Hammerstein’s darkest musical, and Director Kyle Hatley and Music Director Eryn Preston aspire to break the icon of this American musical by bringing to the surface the reality of conflicted characters and their endurance and confrontation of its often overlooked themes of impossible love, incomparable pain and the choices we make in the name of both. Kyle writes, “There will be a Tennessee Williams feel about the story’s atmosphere of the beautifully dark complexity of the natural harmony between sex and violence. There will be, simply and without apology, a muscular strength to the telling of this story that will be visceral, mean and lovely portrayal of the power and danger of love.”
In the cast, there are many local favorites: Rusty Sneary, Katie Gilchrist, Kyle Hatley, Charles Fugate and Gary Neal Johnson.
ArtsAlive is very excited about its first visit to The Living Room and being part of the opening night performance of CAROUSEL. Please join us!
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More about Kyle Hatley
Kyle Hatley (Director) is an actor, director, playwright, producer and Associate Artistic Director of Kansas City Repertory Theatre. At Kansas City Rep, he has directed The Borderland, Broke-ology, the 30th anniversary production of A Christmas Carol and Circle Mirror Transformation. Also at the Rep, he was the assistant director on Clay, A Christmas Story, Into the Woods, The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, an Epilogue, Radio Golf, The Glass Menagerie, Saved and performed as the Gentleman Caller in The Glass Menagerie. He has also directed plays at Kansas City’s TwoThirds Theatre, Equity Showcase and the Coterie Theatre. Kyle has been active in the Kansas City Fringe Festival since 2008. He is currently working on two new play: a new musical called People Fall and a sychological thriller called Raise My Hand. He is also the artistic director and co-founder of Chtterbox Audio Theatre, a non-profit, web-based theatre company that produces fully soundscaped audio plays for free streaming or download. In 2009, The Pitch named Kyle as Best Director in Kansas City. He was recently named a 2011 Charlotte Street Foundation Generative Artist Fellow.
More about Eryn M. Preston
Eryn M. Preston, Music Director, recently served as Assistant Music Director for Kansas City Rep’s Cabaret. Her composition credits include original music for Head (by Kyle Hatley), additional music for Kansas City Rep’s A Christmas Carol, and origanl scores for The Human Experience: Love and Pinocchio with Chatterbox Audio Theatre. Her UK credits include Into the Woods (Oxford Playhouse) and Iolanthe (New Theatre Oxford). She has also served as teh accompanist for the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Oxford University (UK). Education: MBA, UMKC; BA in Music, William Jewell College.
More about Cara & Cabeza Contemporary
The mission of Cara and Cabezas Contemporary is to represent and exhibit the work of contemporary artists from Central and South America alongside that of local artists living in the cities in which the gallery occupies exhibition space, currently San Francisco and Kansas City. Working in multiple venues, Cara and Cabezas Contemporary provides the opportunity to share a particular body of work with diverse audiences and expands exchange between cultural centers.
More about Victor Cartagena
Victor Cartagena has exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions at PanAmerican ArtProjects, Miami, Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco, Gallery TinT, Thessaloniki, Greece, MACLA Center for Latino Arts, San Jose, Ampersand International Arts, San Francisco among others. He has received numerous awards for his work including 2005 San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grant, 2004 Peter S. Reed Foundation Award, New Visions of California Art Award/Residency at 18th Street Arts Complex, Los Angeles, CA, and the Rockefeller Foundation MAP grant. Cartagena’s work is in numerous private and institutional collections, including the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii; The Contemporary Art Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii; the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, CA; the Collection of Egnatia Odos, Thessaloniki, Greece and the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, Greece. Cartagena was born in El Salvador and in the mid-eighties, he immigrated to San Francisco where he currently lives and works.
More about Nicholas Naughton
Nicholas Naughton has had solo exhibitions at La Galleria, Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, INKubator Press, Kansas City, MO, and FORUM Arts and Culture, in El Paso, TX. Naughton, who received his MFA in 2008 from New Mexico State University, is currently a Charlotte Street Foundation Urban Culture Project studio resident.
