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History

A Brief History of the Rep

 

Kansas City Repertory Theatre, the professional theatre in residence at UMKC, continues its four-decade long tradition of presenting works that are compelling, passionate and imaginative.

The Rep was founded in 1964 by Dr. Patricia McIlrath, a tireless crusader for excellent theatre. Her vision was to establish a training program where theatre students could work side by side with professional actors, designers and directors. Within a few years of its founding, the Rep became affiliated with Actors’ Equity Association and formally took the name Missouri Repertory Theatre.

James Costin also played a vital role in the growth and success of the theatre and served as its longtime administrator from its founding until his retirement in 2000. George Keathley was appointed artistic director after Dr. McIlrath’s retirement in 1985 and served until 2000. That same year, Peter Altman joined the Rep as producing artistic director and he served for seven years. Eric Rosen was appointed artistic director in November 2007 and 2008-09 was his inaugural season.

The Rep moved into the Helen F. Spencer Theatre in the new UMKC Performing Arts Center (now designated the James C. Olson Performing Arts Center) in 1979; that same year marked the not-for-profit incorporation of Missouri Repertory Theatre. In 2004, the Rep’s Board of Directors voted to rename the company Kansas City Repertory Theatre to better reflect its identity, location and audience.

The Rep’s long-held dream to establish a second, smaller theatre was realized in 2007 when Copaken Stage opened in downtown Kansas City, expanding the theatre’s performance options and further establishing the Rep as a leader in Kansas City’s arts community.

For a comprehensive history about the founding of the Rep, please visit http://cas.umkc.edu/theatre/about.html

 

Performance History

  • 1964-65
    • The Corn is Green
    • Private Lives
    • 1965
    • Twelfth Night
    • Tartuffe
    • Candida
    • The Lady's Not for Burning

1981-82

  • The Three Sisters
  • Talley's Folly
  • Picnic
  • The Good Person of Szechwan
  • A Christmas Carol
  • The Royal Family
  • Loose Ends
  • Crown of Thorns
  • Macbeth

1997-98

  • Blithe Spirit
  • A Christmas Carol
  • Later Life
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • The Gospel at Colonus
  • Les Liaisons Dangereuses

 
  • 1966-67
    • Marat/Sade
    • She Stoops to Conquer
    • Crime on Goat Island
    • Camille
  • 1982-83
    • Antony and Cleopatra
    • Hay Fever
    • The Magnificent Yankee
    • Terra Nova
    • A Christmas Carol
    • The Innocents
    • Translations
    • The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
  • 1998-99
    • The Royal Hunt of the Sun
    • A Christmas Carol
    • The Last Night of Ballyhoo
    • The Miracle Worker
    • Laughter on the 23rd Floor
    • WMKS: Where Music Kills Sorrow
    • The Shorts Fest
  • 1967-68
    • The Physicists
    • You Can't Take It with You
    • The Importance of Being Earnest
    • Richard III
  • 1983-84
    • Sea Marks
    • The Importance of Being Earnest
    • The Dresser
    • The Speckled Band
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Life with Father
    • Retro
    • Trio
    • The Taming of the Shrew
  • 1999-2000
    • Picasso at the Lapin Agile
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Inherit the Wind
    • Gross Indecency
    • The Sea Gull
    • Master Class
  • 1968-69
    • Oedipus Rex
    • The Miser
    • Aegina
    • Philadelphia, Here I Come!
    • The Glass Menagerie
    • The White House
  • 1984-85
    • Strider
    • True West
    • Come Back, Little Sheba
    • Fifteen Strings of Cash
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Romeo and Juliet
    • Crimes of the Heart
    • Masters of the Sea
    • Peter Pan
  • 2000-01
    • Major Barbara
    • Sisters Matsumoto
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Machinal
    • Blood Wedding
    • Company
  • 1969-70
    • The Father
    • Our Town
    • A Flea In Her Ear
    • Look Back in Anger
    • The Taming of the Shrew
    • J.B.
    • Blithe Spirit

1985-86

  • Agamemnon
  • Foxfire
  • Side by Side by Sondheim
  • A Christmas Carol
  • Fallen Angels
  • Master Harold.and the Boys
  • Othello
  • 2001-02
    • The Philadelphia Story
    • Morning Star
    • A Christmas Carol
    • The Winter's Tale
    • Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright
    • Joe Turner's Come and Gone
  • 1970-71
    • The Skin of Our Teeth
    • Harvey
    • Indians
    • Exit the King
    • The Tempest
    • Arms and the Man
    • Spoon River Anthology
  • 1986-87
    • Brighton Beach Memoirs
    • Equus
    • Fool for Love
    • A Christmas Carol
    • A Class "C" Trial in Yokohama
    • And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little
    • The Glass Menagerie
  • 2002-03
    • Incognito
    • Saint Joan
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Guys and Dolls
    • The Triumph of Love
    • Indian Ink
    • 2 Pianos, 4 Hands
  • 1971-72
    • Measure for Measure
    • The Subject Was Roses
    • The Waltz of the Toreadors
    • The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail
    • The School for Wives
    • An Enemy of the People
    • See How They Run
  • 1987-88
    • Dracula
    • Educating Rita
    • End of the World
    • A Christmas Carol
    • All My Sons
    • The House of Blue Leaves
    • The Curious Adventures of Alice

  • 2003-04

    • Front Page
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Metamorphoses
    • It Ain't Nothin' But The Blues
    • Liliom
    • Living Out
  • 1972-73
    • Murder in the Cathedral
    • Cat Among the Pigeons
    • Barefoot in the Park
    • Long Day's Journey into Night
    • The House of Blue Leaves
    • Borstal Boy
    • Angel Street
    • Tartuffe
  • 1988-89
    • The Great Sebastians
    • The Emperor Jones
    • The Immigrant
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Tons of Money
    • The Road to Mecca
    • The Tempest
    • A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • 2004-05
    • Pirates of Penzance
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Two Trains Running
    • Little Women
    • A Young Lady From Rwanda
    • The Voysey Inheritance
    • Carter's Way
  • 1973-74
    • Straight Up
    • Pygmalion
    • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
    • Othello
    • Hedda Gabler
    • Jabberwock
    • Charley's Aunt
    • The Fourposter
  • 1989-90
    • Jekyll!
    • Absent Friends
    • Woody Guthrie's American Song
    • Love Letters
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Born Yesterday
    • Of Mice and Men
    • Amadeus
  • 2005-06
    • Man and Superman
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Give 'Em Hell, Harry
    • A Raisin in the Sun
    • Hank Williams: Lost Highway
    • The Trip to Bountiful
    • Room Service

1974-75

  • The Rivals
  • Peg O' My Heart
  • That Championship Season
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • Peer Gynt
  • Androcles and the Lion
  • 1990-91
    • Our Town
    • A Moon for the Misbegotten
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Billy Bishop Goes to War
    • Fences
    • Richard III
    • The Boys Next Door

2006-07

  • Jitney
  • A Christmas Carol
  • King Lear
  • Love, Janis
  • Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure
  • The Syringa Tree
  • Under Midwestern Stars
  • 2 Pianos, 4 Hands
  • 1975-76
    • Born Yesterday
    • The Cherry Orchard
    • Much Ado about Nothing
    • The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia
    • A Streetcar Named Desire
    • Well of the House
    • Dear Liar
    • I Am Black
  • 1991-92
    • King Lear
    • I'm Not Rappaport
    • A Christmas Carol
    • The Lady from Maxim's Lady Day at
    • Emerson's Bar & Grill
    • A View from the Bridge
    • The Cocktail Hour
  • 2007-08
    • Bad Dates
    • Doubt
    • A Christmas Carol
    • A John Denver Holiday Concert
    • To Kill a Mockingbird
    • A Marvelous Party
    • Gee's Bend
    • The Drawer Boy
  • 1976-77
    • The Rainmaker
    • The Morgan Yard
    • The Drunkard
    • Don Juan of Flatbush
    • The Great White Hope
    • The Heiress
    • Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
    • Once in a Lifetime
  • 1992-93
    • Romeo and Juliet
    • Broadway Bound
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
    • Rough Crossing
    • The Death of a Salesman
    • The Fantasticks
    • A Midsummer Night's Dream

  • 2008-09

    • Clay
    • Radio Golf
    • A Christmas Carol
    • The Glass Menagerie
    • The Arabian Nights
    • Winesburg, Ohio
    • The Borderland
    • A Flea in Her Ear
  • 1977-78
    • The Glass Menagerie
    • The Orphans
    • The Misanthrope
    • Old Times
    • Mary Stuart
    • The Hostage
    • The Morning Star
    • Purlie Victorious
    • The Imaginary Invalid
    • All My Sons
  • 1993-94
    • M. Butterfly
    • La Vie, L'Amour: Piaf
    • A Christmas Carol
    • The Foreigner
    • Julius Caesar
    • The Gin Game
    • Whisper in the Mind

  • 2009-10

    • Into the Woods
    • Palomino
    • A Christmas Story, the Musical
    • Around the
      World in 80 Days
    • Broke-ology
    • Bus Stop
    • Venice
  • 1978-79
    • Julius Caesar
    • Light Up the Sky
    • The Shadow Box
    • The Sea Gull
    • Rashomon
    • The Happy Hunter
    • Bus Stop
    • The Little Foxes

1994-95

  • Dancing at Lughnasa
  • The Deputy
  • A Christmas Carol
  • If We Are Women
  • The Imaginary Invalid
  • Paul Robeson
  • Treasure Island

1979-80

  • Hamlet
  • Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
  • The New York Idea
  • The Chalk Garden
  • Oh Coward!
  • The Visit
  • Twelfth Night
  • Hamlet
  • Look Homeward, Angel

1995-96

  • A Delicate Balance
  • A Christmas Carol
  • The Belle of Amherst
  • Almost September
  • Antigone
  • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
  
  • 1980-81
    • Medea
    • What Every Woman Knows
    • The Learned Ladies
    • Catsplay
    • Lady Audley's Secret
    • Night of the Iguana
    • Wings
    • A Perfect Gentleman

1996-97

  • The Misanthrope
  • A Christmas Carol
  • Oleanna
  • Three Tall Women
  • Oedipus the King
  • All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten