Coterie Theatre
Address:
Coterie Theatre
2450 Grand Avenue
Kansas City, MO 64108
Phone:
Box Office - (816) 474-6552
Office - (816) 474-6785
Fax - (816) 474-7112
www.thecoterie.org
Contacts:
Amanda Kibler, Director of Education
akiibler@coterietheatre.org
More Info:
The Coterie, a professional Equity theatre, is among the top five theatres serving families and young audiences in the United States, according to TIME magazine. Travel+Leisure magazine's top ten list of children's theatres described the Coterie as "a theatre that resolutely refuses to talk down to its audience." The mainstage season consists of six full productions: three for older students (junior high and high school) and adults, and three for younger audiences and families. The emphasis is often on new or recent works. In 2008, the Coterie launched its Coterie At Night series, which performs exclusively at night at venues other than the Coterie, targeting ages 17 to 21.
Through ingenious programming, the Coterie plays a vital role in the greater Kansas City area developing new generations of audiences for the performing arts with plays that reach a variety of age groups. In 1995, the prestigious Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Award was given to the theatre for its world premiere of Alicia in Wonder Tierra, a great success for the theatre involving actors in the Latino community in that production and many others.
In 1999, the Coterie world premiere commission of The Wrestling Season went on to be produced around the country after it transferred to Kennedy Center for New Visions 2000: One Theatre World. The play was featured as the published play in American Theatre Magazine in November, 2000. Several of the Coterie's premieres were developed at the Kennedy Center's New Vision/New Voices new play festival and at NYU's Educational Theatre Program at Provincetown Playhouse.
In 2004, Producing Artistic Director Jeff began the Coterie's Lab for New Family Musicals by working with Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty to create a Theatre for Young Audiences version of Seussical adapted from Broadway. It has since become one of the most produced plays in educational theatre in United States. The Coterie’s Lab for New Family Musicals has hosted new work by musical theatre artists Stephen Schwartz (Geppetto & Son), Willie and Rob Reale (The Dinosaur Musical), and Harry Connick Jr. (The Happy Elf), and other works by Ahrens and Flaherty (Twice Upon a Time and a TYA version of Once On This Island). [Special interview with Lynn Ahrens on this.]
In addition, the mainstage season includes the Young Playwrights' Festival, which features the works of teen playwrights fostered through the Young Playwrights' Roundtable, facilitated by Artistic Director Church.
