Welcome to the State of the Arts.

Conversations with Kansas City Arts Leaders.

My first conversation this evening is with Stuart Carden.

He is the fifth artistic director of the Kansas City Repertory Theater and he was announced on September 1st of 2019, just in time to not perform.

So I guess my first question is, Stuart, you know, you get introduced in September of 2019, you turn around and the idea of performing arts, it had to have been the toughest time.

And maybe just the history of performing arts.

In American theater and performance in the last hundred years for sure.

And you're right, there was a moment when I came here.

This is my first artistic director job.

And so I was absolutely on a high.

I was thrilled to be here and to land this position and to start activating some of my vision for the future of KC Rep. And as you suggest, it was just a few months later that we were opening two world premieres and we to try to bring a bit of of black humor into the moment because it was a pretty brutal moment having to shut down.

We called them our openings.

They were both our openings and closings on the same night.

And it was a it was an incredibly, incredibly surreal moment to walk in in front of this group of artists that were building these two world premieres and say to them, all of the work that we've been doing, all of the five years that you've been writing this piece, that we're finally getting to the premiere of it, that we're going to have to shut it down on our opening night.

Do you have someone you can lean on?

Was there someone that you could call again?

Artistic director job you have that you haven't not used to shutting down shows before they even start.

When you when you have to deal with something like that and deal with something for the first time in a new city.

Do you have somebody that you can lean on to kind of guide you and through that.

Process, in that moment, there were people to lean on, but they equally had no there was no precedent for it.

And so so Angela Garris, our executive director, most large regional theaters like KC Rep, they have a CO leadership model.

So there's the artistic director and then there's the executive director.

And so Angela Garris and I were about four months into our working relationship as co-leaders of this organization.

And so we definitely leaned on one another, but Angela had never been through anything that compared to this.

And even my colleagues that lived through the economic downturn of about ten years ago, this was just at a completely different level where all performances stopped.

We were unable to maintain our mission in the traditional ways that we had.

We had time to mature during the pandemic.

And there's I'm an optimist.

I always my glasses more than half full and I am more than glass half full type of artistic leader.

And so I look for those positives that came out of the pandemic.

And there are so many that we can look to and point to.

And one of them is the opportunity to to think really deeply about the purpose of our organization and recenter it as a meaningful, not for profit in not only the communities that we had been serving, but began to expand to other communities that are just as deserving of transformational theater experiences.

First thing I think of that you brought here was Ghost Light, and then what you're doing with the with the crossroads.

So what is that?

You know, how does that tie into your goals as the artistic director of The Wrap?

So Ghost Light, where I took the artistic director job, was in my five year plan that in five years we would launch something like Ghost Light, which is a music and ghost storytelling event and festival and the pandemic hit and we could not perform inside.

And so it became really my six month plan.

And so we immediately started to move forward with ghost light.

This year is the first year that we're in a Kansas City public park, a completely free event this year as well, increasing the accessibility open to anyone from all over the city to come and experience it.

And each year will be in a different Kansas City park.

So taking this experience to very different neighborhoods for this annual celebration, well, I.

Remember when I went to couple of years ago, I'm still listening to Freight Train Rabbit Killer constantly.

And I was like the visual freight train.

Like, I don't exactly sure what's going on on the stage right now, but I do know I love right here.

There's another kind of puppet mask and of a of a deer that's a part of the performance.

And also this year, we're doing a lot of arts engagement in it, including a haunted parade where people get to join in and play music alongside of us.

So that ties a little bit.

Brad, if I could just expand to to another program that is that is in that same spirit of we just launched last year, and this is one of the things that I'm most proud of personally, artistically and also for our entire organization is that we just launched last spring a new program called KC Rep for All.

And so this new program takes a play that we run in one of our theaters for our our regular audience in the theater.

And then we extend it beyond that for a free community tour.

And what's unique about the free community tour is that we've partnered with a couple of organizations, including Center for Neighborhoods, who works with Communities of Concern throughout the KC Metro and also KC Public Library.

And we then extended that production.

It was The Royale, the Marco Ramirez piece about Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world.

We took that production and through really wonderful conversations with community leaders in these communities of concern, we brought that production into those community centers, recreation centers and libraries where those communities already felt comfortable, already had a connection to in their neighborhood and and shared this story in that setting, incredibly intimate only for 50 audience members in those found spaces.

And this is a part of our long one of our long term missions is if we're a not for profit, who believes one of our fundamental goals as an arts organization is to do public good?

The type of public good that we could do as a theater is to give the type of of theater experiences that we know are meaningful to as many people as we can.

And so this program launched last year, a completely free program.

It includes a free community meal where we break bread and have conversations and build community around it.

And this is part of our long term plan every year this year.

Coming up, Christine Anderson, who's actually from Kansas City and now is an extraordinarily well produced playwright.

Her play, The Ripple or the Wave That Carried Me Home, is going to be in our on our Kopechne stage and then go out on this free community tour, including hitting this year for the first time veterans communities, women's shelters, spaces and communities that historically have had barriers to engaging with live performing arts.

What does the rep have planned for us to the audience to come visit this?

Yeah.

So coming up, we have our much loved and I love it too.

Tradition of a Christmas Carol and this thing was one of that.

The best surprises when I got here just how much this story and tradition is loved and how people come year after year after year.

And so we're back since the pandemic with our second experience, Gary, Neil Johnson, who is our much loved Scrooge, who has been with us for 20 years, is back with us this year.

And so we're excited about that.

After that, we have a world premiere.

It's a really interesting play.

It's called Flood.

It's by a playwright named Mushtaq Mushtaq Dean not from here, but it's based out of New York, South Asian American playwright.

This play, for those that know their theater history, this play is a little bit in the absurdist theater realm, a little bit of Beckett, a little bit of Invesco for theater nerds.

But it is I'm calling it an existential comedy.

It's very, very funny.

And it explores that both the tensions and the dynamics between that, between generations.

And it's definitely a family existential comedy and drama.

It's really clever and I'm excited about the premiere of that.

And then after that, we have Casey wrap for all piece.

So this is going to be Christina Anderson's play, The Ripple or the Wave That Carried Me Home.

I'm really smart, also quite funny, but a very poignant and moving study about based on real historical events in this region.

It's set in a fictional town of Beacon, Kansas, but it's based on the historic segregation of swimming pools in this area and really investigates the legacy of social justice in a family.

And it's smart and funny and a really moving piece.

And then after that, we're ending the season.

That would be the tour.

So that's the KC rep for all tours that will go on the free community tour.

And then we're ending the season with a new Peter Pan.

It's called Peter Pan and Wendy, and it's adapted by Lauren Gunderson, and it's definitely a new Peter Pan for a new generation.

This writer really centers Wendy and Tigerlily and Tinker Bell into the heart of the action.

And it is it's very true to the source material, but also brings a contemporary perspective.

It's going to be done in my style of directing it.

So it's going to be done in what I call a low fi, high imagination style.

So lots of music.

There's going to be a lot of the flying is going to be done in a in a circus style in the piece.

And it's the continuation of an all ages programing.

So this isn't a family friendly.

Bring your grandkids, bring your kids.

Satisfying for all ages experience.

Oh, Stuart, thank you so much for your time and this conversation.

I look forward to the rest of your season at Kansas City Repertory Theater.

And thank you very much.

I really appreciate.

This is really special.

I love spending time with you and thanks for the invitation.

I thank you very much.

Yeah.

Cheers.

Cheers.

My next conversation is with James McGee.

He is the 18th and Vine District Ambassador among other things, many, many, many hats.

So my first experience at the Mutual Musicians Foundation was it was amazing.

And ever since then, whenever I see somebody who even looks like they might like music in Kansas City or my, you know, listening to their car radio too loud, I have no problem going like you missing out if you've never been to the Mutual Musicians Foundation.

Well, you know, it's I think it's really just a thing of being one, having the history that it has and then being able to maintain the tradition and the legacy of that history on an ongoing basis.

For so long, the Mutual Musicians Foundation is 105 years old.

So any time you walk into a building or a place or that that has that kind of history behind it, it automatically kind of comes with something, especially since that's the original building for that actual organization.

That's the only building they've ever been in.

And then from the social aspect, just the 1:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. type of thing, kinda creates a different environment within that as well.

So we get people from all types of backgrounds, they're there, they're coming from all places from across the city, the country, in the world.

A lot of times we check more passports than state IDs, pretty much, you know, so everybody kind of comes there for that.

That creates a melting pot.

And then to back it up with what we're all there for, which is the music, jazz, I mean, you throw that in there, then you just got a whole unique situation.

So yeah, I know when I go out and see, you know, jazz musicians at different, you know, jazz places, it feels like one thing.

Like I'm we're sharing a turf, I guess.

But I know when I step in the Mutual Musicians Foundation as as somebody that's enjoying the music, I feel like it's the one place in Kansas City is like, I'm on there.

Those.

Those, yeah, those ladies and gentlemen that are on stage.

I'm on their time now.

Right, right.

And and that I feel special to be here.

Yeah.

Well, that's funny because Mr. Howarth, we're now we're talking the chairman of the organization, we're talking maybe yesterday and he was like, Oh yeah, they, they like for me to treat them the way I treat them when they come in here.

You know, this is like it's kind of a rough thing, you know, and it's not done out of any type of malice.

It's just kind of like if somebody how they would deal with you if you're at their house on their turf, you know, I mean, it's like, hey, you're welcome.

Door's open to you.

But it's my rules in here.

As long we all go by my rules, everything's fine.

And and on a deeper level, there's really like a there's really a cultural exchange and exposure that happens at the mutual Musicians Foundation that doesn't really occur in other places in the city because, you know, Kansas City historically is a very segregated city.

So for the people to come over east of truth into the heart of the east side or the black community that you may consider certain that for lack of a better word, and to come to that space like they've had to go through levels and layers to get there.

It's not like it's just walking across the street.

You really have to be intentional about what you're doing.

So when they come in, they're they're already there's already a mentality of, I'm going to be in a totally different culture.

I'm going to conduct myself this way.

I'm going to experience that culture genuinely and authentically.

And I'm not going to try to put myself over it or prioritize myself over it.

And I think that's that's that's kind of a cultural thing because everybody's have to experience that all the time.

But that also lends to that environment.

That kind of is, is the unspoken environment that people kind of feel when they come in there.

One interesting thing about the building itself and which which you explain to me, which I didn't know before we had met the first time, was it?

It is really it is the first historical landmark, national historical landmark in Kansas City.

Right.

You know, I think there are two World.

War One museums.

This is the second one.

But the idea that that was the first that says something about who we are.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's why the city needs to step up.

I'm saying this is this is our thing.

You know, it's like it's kind of been laid out for us.

Everybody doesn't get that.

But, you know, on what you were speaking about as far as coming together of cultures and that relationship that you see at the at the foundation, I mean, it's a pretty simple formula, you know, because when people walk in there, it's no listening to some music, and then just the social aspect of I don't know what it is because like we've talked about, I'm from the Bay Area, it's a very liberal place.

The foundation is like people walk in, they just feel like they can just be themselves.

Even though there are those restrictions.

We talked about how you have to kind of conduct yourself, but I have that's probably one of the freest places in Kansas City for people just to be able to come together and socialize.

It's there, you know, and it's just weird.

Maybe it's the our is the little bit of drinks, it's a little bit of music.

And it's just I think it's kind of the nobody is looking at you, but everybody sees you.

You know what I'm saying?

It's kind of a weird thing, you know.

Again, 18th of by just isn't the mutual musicians out there.

It's just what I brought up first and how how we originally met.

But, you know, across the street, down the block and across the street is the American Jazz Museum.

That's interesting.

The Jazz Museum, I think, in my opinion, is probably one of the best places it's been in years.

Were we regarding the programing that we're doing, the educational initiatives like Kansas City Jazz Academy in our jazz storytelling, our Jazz at Noon program in the Blue Room, and then our access to the community has increased as well.

Just being able to do those things that organically bring the American Jazz Museum, our immediate community and the larger community together.

Those opportunities where there they're partnerships with other creative arts organizations like the Kansas City Ballet, like we were just talking about, or if it's just something that we're doing in the neighborhood, allowing the spaces to be used by the neighborhood for some of their artistic initiatives that they're doing is definitely at a much different place than it was maybe five years ago.

And, you know, we're just kind of going up from there with with the leadership of Rasheeda Phillips, our executive director.

She kind of came in with a big vision and she's really trying to fill it.

So, you know, so that's that's kind of the overall thing of what's going on.

Well, I appreciate it, James.

What am I missing?

What, what?

What what am I missing that people need to know that are watching this?

It's going on in the 18th and Vine District, how we can support the 18th and Vine District and, you know, show the bring bring awareness to what you're working on down there.

You know, just come on by.

You know, that's that's the best thing I can say.

If you're in town or you're from Kansas City, come by on a first Friday.

That's a great day to come.

By first Fridays, we always have either outdoor vendors or some indoor vendors.

It's more of a neighborhood type feel, family feel.

Most of our restaurants and institutions are open, whether it be the Black Archives, the Lincoln Building, the Jazz Museum, the foundation.

They're all kind of open and accessible to the public.

That's something that's usually going on during the day, like 4 to 9 p.m..

So if you got kids, you don't want to be out too late, but you want to come experience that.

You could do that.

I know that the Jazz Museum itself, people need to stay tuned for the jam and at the gym events that we have come together.

I mean, we have some big names coming up.

Just go to American Jazz Museum dot org and stay in tune with their schedule.

We have some really big national and international acts coming to the Jazz Museum, always our Blue Room Monday for the jam sessions, Friday and Saturday for just live jazz at the Blue Room and then keep an eye out for the the events at the gym through that, maybe the jazz museum doesn't produce, but we have partners or people that are coming in doing plays, dance recitals, different things like that.

There's always something going on and the foundation Friday and Saturday night, and we do have some new nights that are coming up.

So we'll just be Friday and Saturday night.

We're going to I think a Tuesday or Wednesday is going to be like an earlier night, oh, night.

And it's going to be led by some of our our musician members is kind of opening up a jam session, having that time there.

And we're also opening tours of the Mutual Musicians Foundation during weekdays and regular hours, small group tours.

Oh, that's great.

Yeah, I would encourage everybody because you showed me around the foundation and I just I think I could that that I guess would it be the the north wall of the pictures.

Oh, you might.

I get a little, little teary eyed northwest.

Yeah.

That wall of photographs of of the people that have come through.

Oh man.

That's just, I think I could spend a few hours just like.

Yeah, yeah, I see something new every time I'm in there.

So, yeah, I've learned something new every time I look at that place.

So yeah.

I encourage everyone that's that's watching that.

If they haven't gone yet, you need to go.

It's a, it's a Kansas City institution that will not disappoint them, I promise.

Yeah.

Yeah.

James, thank you so much for your time.

I appreciate it.

And hopefully we'll get to do this again because I've really enjoyed it, man.

Yeah.

All right.

You should one to.

Thanks, James.

All right.

My next conversation is with Deborah Sandler Kemper.

She is the general director and CEO of Lyric Opera of Kansas City that began her career on the East Coast but came to the Lyric Opera ten years ago.

Happy anniversary, ten years.

What information have you gained by being here for for ten years?

Well, I'm starting to know how to navigate and traffic and to learn about the streets, who may change their names every block or so.

Truly, it takes a very long time to get to know a community.

It really does.

And it is true.

I made a joke, but over a period of time, you do start to understand the ropes and you learn how to navigate.

And I'm not just talking about the streets.

I'm talking about forming greater and closer relationships to people in the community.

Yeah.

You expect you express.

Ten years ago, you did an interview with the Independent and one of the things that you one of the things that you expressed was the cultural differences between your hometown of Philadelphia and here in Kansas City.

How has that guided you?

Well, one of the things I always say is that opera is regional.

I don't think a lot of people think about that.

But what that means to me is the works that an audience in California, you're in L.A. or San Francisco, and there's a difference between L.A. and San Francisco.

Those works may be particular to that region.

This audience may want something completely different, as is the case on the East Coast.

And if you look at the repertoire that those groups do, you will see a difference that all of those towns that I just mentioned and Chicago as well are much, much larger.

And therefore, they have a lot more going on not to sell Kansas City short in any way, and we can talk about that.

But they have a lot more going on at any given time.

And so I would say the artistic vocabulary of these cities is a little bit different.

The art form has been around for so long, 400 years.

My thought was you as a producer have to now think and some of these I have to think of, there's been so many technical advances and just the technologies around presentation.

Right.

What are those that you have to think about now that you didn't have to think about before?

Like the I can't imagine that the difference of an opera 400 years ago and now the stories always still hold up.

But you have to be a little more technically savvy.

I assume.

Well, you have the option of being more technically savvy.

One of the challenges in opera is it takes the same number of people to do an opera today that it did say in 1787.

So there are no economies of scale, right?

You can't you can't you can't replace people with some sort of robot or something that might be used in a in an assembly factory.

It still takes the same number of people.

One of the greatest places where you see the use of technology has to do with what we call projections.

And that is not necessarily cheaper than building physical sets.

And the truth of the matter is, when you use projections, usually you're using projections plus physical scenery.

But it creates it pushes the imagination in a totally different way.

For example, I was spending some time today thinking about The Shining and looking at some images of The Shining, and it was breathtaking to see what the scenic designer and the projection designer and these are these projections are developed.

And it's a it's an incredible craft to be able to do that.

But we went from the beginning of the opera, which is not like the book excuse me, which is not like the movie.

The opera is more like the book, but not like the movie.

But the opera opens with a scene of trees, a magnificent forest.

And, you know, it takes place in generally.

And so the Overlook Hotel was based on a hotel, I think, in the Rockies.

And so the opera opens with this incredible foliage.

It's a forest scene and it fades into the front of the Overlook Hotel, and it's a fade and that's all a projection.

And then then the then the scrim comes up and that's the surface on which the projection is made.

And it comes up.

And then you see the inside of the Overlook Hotel.

You can't do that with scenery.

You can't move scenery as quickly as you can move a projection.

So a projection can define and redefine and push your imagination in a way that not all Hart's scenery can.

And as I said to the greatest effect are used together.

So you mentioned The Shining.

I I've been it's been a couple of years since you and Nancy were bringing the shining opera to Kansas City.

I'm really.

Except when when do people get to get to see that opera?

When does that come?

Late February or early March.

You were right.

It had been scheduled.

And then it was unfortunately postponed due to COVID for several years.

So we're very happy to be able to actually do it.

It is a beautiful, beautiful score, extremely melodic.

And it tells this sort of psychologically thrilling story.

But in a sense, it's a story of a family and of dysfunction and mental illness.

So it's not just.

Stephen King.

Oh, my God, I'm scared.

But it's a lot of our family.

Great to see the the performing arts getting sick, getting back to performing and live.

I know we tried.

You know, a lot of performing arts.

We tried to do video, but there's just something about sitting in that, you know, in front of that stage watching a live performance that you just can't beat.

I agree.

And, you know, during COVID, we all had an opportunity to sort of stretch our muscles in different ways because people couldn't come together.

And so a lot of digital products were created and some companies said, well, this will be our new future.

And I never really bought that because I thought there was a certain fatigue.

And people do want to sit together and people do want to experience emotional experience together.

So we're very, very happy to be together.

How did COVID or that experience and COVID talk about the outreach affect the outreach?

So so we we slowed down.

We didn't really slow down, but we slowed down in terms of public programing.

And, you know, at the same time that we were all dealing with COVID, there were a lot of social justice issues that came up into the world.

And at the same time, we were all dealing with financial issues.

So we decided to stop and do some strategic revisioning and saying, okay, going through what we just went through and knowing some of the important things to our community and the communities wanted to be engaged.

What can we do at Lyric Opera of Kansas City to be a value to our community?

What can we do to make sure that in 50 years there will be people sitting in the seats of for our audiences?

And what can we do to create artistic literacy in Kansas City?

Because that's good for Kansas City.

And that was really the impetus for us.

Slight pivot.

How do you see the arts as a whole in Kansas City right now from not only a as someone who directs one of those those pillars of the arts here in Kansas City, but reaching out to for support from from the patrons who might be a little leery.

Right.

Right.

I think I think that's a very good estimation.

So there are a lot of answers to the question.

I can say that in general, when we talked about our strategic visioning, what I didn't say was that one one part of the impetus was not only COVID, but it had to do with following trends in the performing arts and attendance in the performing arts.

And we have all noticed downward trends in terms of live attendance.

This is something that we were all talking about before COVID.

So it just it's forever on our minds.

And in fact, very recently some research was done and it said that the audiences of the performing arts, not just in Kansas City, but in our country, the audiences have been leaving for one reason or another.

It may be age, it may be travel, but for one reason or another, we are losing more people from the performing arts than are coming new to the performing arts.

So there's a deficit there and we're all trying to think very diligently about how we be set up.

I've talked a bit about education, and the reason I talk about that is what we know from other research is the only people who well, the greatest predictor of arts attendance is having experienced it as a young person, which is why we are so busy with education.

Now, I will tell you that we are so fortunate here in Kansas City because the arts groups work very, very hard to produce products that are more artistically vibrant and excellent than what you might expect from a city of this size.

So you have that to begin with.

But we are also fortunate in that we truly like each other and we get together all the time and we try to brainstorm collectively.

There's not a lot of proprietary information, certainly in terms of trends in what we're doing.

We may not hand somebody else our best donors name, but that would be expected.

But we do get together and we talk about things.

We also work with arts.

KC So we're very busy trying to do the best we can, and it's going to take a little bit of time for our pandemic weary audience to come back in full force.

Wonderful.

Deborah Sandler, Kemper, thank you so much for this conversation.

And I know the people watching will get a lot out of it and encourage them to visit La Traviata this, this weekend and support the arts here in Kansas City.

One of the most perfect operas.

Thank you, Brad.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

My next conversation is with Devon Carney, the artistic director of Kansas City Ballet.

Devon joined the company ten years ago.

So first, congratulations on on ten years with Kansas City Ballet.

Thanks, Brant.

It's been quite a wonderful ride.

So one thing that I read in an interview before you started was one of your goals was to have your first ballet be Giselle.

Here we are, the opening of this season was Giselle.

That can't be a coincidence, right?

Not really.

You're absolutely right.

No, it's a very wonderful ballet.

It's near and dear to my heart.

So I certainly wanted it to come back at a celebratory time like this.

And so what was it about that?

What is it about that ballet that you're like, we want to revisit that again after ten years.

And what different has changed from that, that first time to to now, ten years later?

Well, the reason to come back to a ballet like this from time to time is that it's a part of history.

It's a part of our world of art that's been going on.

This ballet has been going on for 181 years.

It would have been 171 years when I first did it here.

But there's a lineage that's very important to continue.

Of dancers being able to step up and do these kind of roles and become greater artists.

And it's also an opportunity for our audience to see the growth of our company artistically and also technically, which has happened in the last ten years.

One of the things that I've always enjoyed about ballet is because it's an art form, it's an athletic art form.

And then as I was thinking about that, I began to think about the Helsinki International Ballet competition, and I was like, Boy, now it's a sport as well in the in the competition.

So it's such a diverse and well-rounded art form that.

Tell me about a little a little bit about doing so well at the Helsinki International Ballet Competition and about it and Kansas City Ballet's.

You know, I love it when art here in Kansas City gets to take Kansas City with them.

Out, out and about.

And one of those is is with this competition.

There's an international ballet competition that happens every year and it happens in four different locations.

So it's kind of like a quad quantum annual experience each year.

It's in a different city.

This particular year, this summer, it was in Helsinki, and that's Finland, Helsinki, Finland.

And one of our young dancers, Joshua Kiesel, who was a second company member who joined our company after proving his incredible talent of being great worth to the overall impact of what our company is going to be doing in the future and present.

He wanted to go do this competition and I was very supportive of that and said, Let's do it together.

Let let's have the company support you and get you there, which is very important in a competition environment.

You need you need a team around you.

You can't do it on your own and really be as successful as you could be.

So we went and he did extremely well.

And this is international ballet competition, okay?

And it's truly was that as a matter of fact, there's two different divisions in these competitions.

There's a junior, which is up to age 20 sorry, up to age 19.

And then there's another division, they call it the senior division, which is between 20 and 26.

And Josh was in the senior division.

He was the only American to compete at the Helsinki competition.

So he represented Kansas City Ballet, he represented Kansas City, he represented the United States of America.

And the fact that he did so well is just a testament to the kind of talent that's here in Kansas City Ballet.

But also it's a testament to our training, to our quality that we actually have here, that we can attract those kind of dancers.

And he did phenomenal.

He won third place on an international level.

The biggest stage you can think of in terms of a major talent that's growing and coming out of schools around the world.

So it was a really exciting opportunity for him.

Now, the other side of this is your question about the sport of competition.

There are two, what do you call it?

There are two camps.

When it comes to competitions, one says it's art.

You can't possibly put a score on art.

And the other says this is a great opportunity for new and young talent to really strut their stuff and really bust out and really do major roles on stage.

And, you know, you have a panel of judges, so and they're all world renowned dancers, former or current artistic directors, ballet coaches, and some of them are principal dancers from major companies.

So you have a panel that is pretty strong cross cut of artistic opinions.

So you do have a good tendency of being able to say, yes, that person is the best, and yes, that person is just a little bit less but still qualifies as being an excellent dancer.

So they would be second or they would be third.

So it's exciting.

I actually competed with a partner in Jackson, which is happening this summer, the international competition.

Jackson I compete in that with as a what they call a non competing partner with my partner.

We won bronze in that one in Jackson in 1994, just a few years ago, just a couple.

But it's an experience of a lifetime.

You're around some of the greatest dancers that will be in existence for that generation.

And you will never forget that experience and those those ties, those connections with all these wonderful dancers are things that will go with Josh Kissel for the rest of his career and beyond.

On the same on the same level as taking things out of Kansas City and taking them beyond.

I also know that one of your goals when you first started here ten years ago, was to create your own version of The Nutcracker, which you've done, and in doing so you're able to take that to the the Kennedy Center in the past.

But you were asked once again to do it this year.

So that experience of how did you get what's that feeling of setting a goal of wanting to create something and the success of it for people on the outside saying, we want you to bring it here as well.

Overwhelming in a wonderfully positive way.

So that's the answer to that in a nutshell.

Oh, a nutshell.

You I thought it was like good.

Like Devin's on.

Sorry, but it was a really great experience.

First and foremost, to have the opportunity, just the opportunity to take what I think nutcrackers should look like and have it come to life.

I've danced Nutcracker since I was 15 and I performed in Nutcracker even after I stopped dancing as Draw.

So Maya, it's just been an ongoing part of my life and it is a part of any ballet dancers life their entire careers and beyond.

If they stay in the business.

So I've danced a lot of different versions, and over that time I've gathered sort of an idea of what I feel would be a wonderful nutcracker and what I would want to communicate to an audience and in which audience members I'd want to touch in the course of an evening or matinee coming to see The Nutcracker.

And it's one of those moments.

It's very important.

It's a tradition.

Right.

And a lot of audience members bring their children and those children bring their children.

Multi generations come to see The Nutcracker.

So there's a huge responsibility on my part to make sure that this production is one that's going to do Kansas City right, but also do all the audience members who come to see the show do them right and that they're going to walk away from that production, that performance going.

I've been uplifted.

I feel more a part of the holidays.

I see the holidays for a childlike heart.

And that's all the kind of things that I wanted to have in The Nutcracker.

So when I got that chance to create a 2015 is when we premiered it.

It was thrilling.

The crazy part was that while we were preparing the Kennedy Center called us to ask us if we wanted to do it the following year.

So that was like, you know, there's a there's a cherry on the on the such sundae, the ice cream sundae.

I don't know what goes on top of the cherry, but.

Whatever that is.

Whatever that might be, maybe it's a diamond, you know, the the the compliment that they actually called us even before we even performed it was just incredible.

It's a testament to what's here in Kansas City and to the reputation we here in Kansas City and and in Kansas City Ballet have nationally that the national stage would call us and say, hey, we want you to do The Nutcracker next year, even before the curtain had gone up on the premiere.

That's striking.

So we did it.

We went to the Kennedy Center a year and a half later, 2017.

Unbelievable success, sold out houses.

Audience members constantly were saying, and I'm not kidding, I will quote Kansas City.

Wow.

That goes to your question.

So I loved that that we were able to surprise in a pleasant way, Washington, D.C. audiences.

So here's the kicker, right?

So we did it.

Wonderful success.

They call us again now that they know what we're like, now they know what our show is like, they want us back.

Yeah, it's probably a testament to of course I know your attention to detail, but being invited once is one thing but them so not just inviting you but so quickly.

I mean, that's that's pretty quick.

It's only four years to say we need this back, right?

What what an amazing testament to to Kansas City Ballet and and you're.

Absolutely and on top of that we were and to this day have been the highest selling production of Nutcracker or any show that the Kennedy Center has done since we were there the first time.

So there's something going on here in Kansas City that that the larger national dance scene is recognizing and appreciating and that's I'm thrilled that that genuinely is being seen beyond our borders.

So maybe Kansas City isn't such a flyover place.

Hey.

I was thinking about your job the other day, and I'm sure I can't scratch the surface, but I was I was thinking about it, and and the reason, because we've had relationships over the years with some of the dancers and they and they move and they go to two different companies.

Yeah I think.

What is that.

I it really, it really brought into focus over the last few months.

I was like, wow, not only do you have to choose the public persona of of Kansas City Ballet, but you also have to invigorate it with new talent.

So is that part of the how do you even approach that?

You know, we only have so many years and I say we because I went through a very extensive career.

So I understand.

I've lived it.

You only have so many years and you don't know how many years that is before your career is done.

So the important part is that every year that you have is one more year of amazing opportunities.

And for me, what's important is that I bring to the stage and to our company the most that I can pack in in those unknown number of years for a dancer.

If I do that and I do that well, I will attract our company will attract better and better higher level dancers, and they want to stay and we won't be that mid mid-level sort of thing that a dancer says, Well, I'll be here for a couple of years and then off I go to something else.

They want to make their whole career here, and that's from creating a extremely diverse repertoire, increasing the number of performances we do in a given year so that we can put more in to that limited lifespan that an artist has.

And that's one of my major goals, is to create a bucket list that's real for dancers here, not pie in the sky dream of, Oh, if I could only be in a place that would do X number of works that I really like to do and want to do before I retire, but that they can see that in the bucket if they come to Kansas City Ballet, it already exists.

And that's the kind of place I want our company to continue to be and increase.

And that's why more productions within the course of a year is vitally important.

It's also something that our audiences can then enjoy the more world class choreography we have on an ongoing basis, the more they're going to want to come back.

And that leads me back to your question about what can audiences do?

Just come enjoy what we're doing.

That's all.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I really look forward to the rest of the season and another ten years.

There you go.

I'm with you on that.

That's good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My next conversation is with Jeff Bentley, the executive director of the Kansas City Ballet.

He has been involved in the arts for 40 years, professionally, and he has been the executive director of the Kansas City Ballet since 1998.

The first thing I wanted to talk to you about announcing your retirement at the end of this season.

So was it just is just you have other plans that you want to do or just overall?

I've been in this field either as a performer or as an administrator or, you know, festivals or companies or whatever for well over 50 years.

And I consider this job a gift.

The last 25 years, as I started to see the sort of the end part of my active career, to have been here and to be able to work with the people I've worked with over time to see this company grow, to watch this city grow in terms of its support and awareness, not just of the ballet, but certainly the ballet.

It's it's time to sort of take a break and but really, for the organization, it's important that you always have new leadership coming in, whether it's two years or 25 years apart.

It's still, I think, really important to get new ideas, more contemporary.

Look at things perhaps.

You know, I've been doing this a long time.

That's good.

But there's things about that that you can you you might get internal you might not be you might not be saying the things that maybe you want to see if you had a fresher look.

So I'm saying.

Look back at the last 25 years and as I was as I was reading all the accomplishments that that had happened with with the arts in Kansas City, I'm one of those, of course, being the you know, the Performing Arts Center, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, you know, came about halfway between.

But at the same time, you're you're in charge are overseeing the the construction of the Millender Center, which is such an amazing, amazing space.

How how important was that in the you know, in the timeline of Kansas City Ballet to have something like that, to be able to expand, you know, how do how do you look as that is the goal?

And did you achieve the goal that you wanted to achieve with that?

Yeah, we did.

Let's start with that.

For starters.

You know, before I came, I think the ballet had been in like six or seven different places where the dancers would rehearse and they would have the administration and they were all temporary and they were all unknown how long they were going to last.

And they, they even they met the moment at that moment, but they were never about the future.

What the Todd Bollinger Center did was give us a seat at the community table.

Until that time, people respected the work.

They certainly respected the work that John and with Oscar and Todd Bollinger had done with the company and Bill Lightner as well.

But it was I had the sense that we were sort of it was like the young kids, you get patted on the head and everything is going to be fine and you're really kind of charming with the boulder.

And we became a serious entity in this community in terms of a professional performing arts organization that have economic had an economic impact on on the city and on the region.

So the Boulder Center changed our life.

And the fact that it was so serendipitous that the volunteer center came online two months earlier than the Coffman Center in in that following year, that following the fiscal year, our budget went from like $5 million to almost almost $8 million in one year because of additional audiences, the more opportunity we had to perform.

So it just and we've grown from there.

So that building had incredible influence.

So we've been looking at the ballet kind of shift for a second at Kansas City audiences or so over these last 25 years have.

Those how has the Kansas City audience and the patrons of the arts have you seen a shift in behavior or how people visit or support the arts?

I mean, how how from your perspective, what can what have you seen change?

And how can patrons of Kansas City Arts be better?

Because I always think I could be a better patron of the arts.

Come more, come more.

You know, I mean, it's like learning how to ski.

Well, I learned how the skills in Aspen for several years running a festival there, I didn't have ski and it can't live in Aspen.

You don't have ski.

And my staff bought me an ever present.

They bought me a three day ski pass, but and I didn't fall down.

But I, you know, it was really wobbly on the first.

The more you do it, the more you become comfortable with it, the more go to the ballet, the more you will become knowledgeable.

You will be.

You'll begin to understand that you'll begin to see more things.

And so one thing I would say is come more now and just just just come and come to see the same ballet a couple of times.

We're there two weekends now.

We do that for a reason.

We do it so people can see it on the first week and then say to their friends, That's fabulous, we should all go together and go to town, go on the second weekend, because the more you see, the more you'll understand and the more you'll be engaged.

That's one thing.

The other thing is you have to understand how expensive this art form is.

So thank you for your contributions, but understand that that thousand dollar contributions which we love, we don't in any way dismiss that thousand dollars or that $100 contribution.

But that thousand dollar contribution over ten years now is about 1800 dollars.

That and we need to make up that gap.

So come contribute as much as you can, much as you reasonably can, and just and talk about us, talk about not just us, the symphony, the opera, the artist, all of our great arts, cultural institutions.

So be an advocate, be a donor, be an attendee, patron.

Those three things, if you can do those, you will have an enormous impact on the success and growth of the arts in this community and of the Kansas City Ballet.

Jeff, thank you so much for for joining us and for sitting down with me for this conversation.

And I wish you all the best, not only the rest of this season with the ballet, but.

But not retirement.

Not retirement.

Unknown schedule, unknown scheduling.

But we we really hope that you continue to work your arts magic here in Kansas City and our area.

And again, congratulations on the the Leadership and Arts Award from from the state of Missouri.

I love the city.

I love the people.

I love the people I work with.

So I'm going to I'll be around.

Thank you.

Thank you.