Peter Altman, Producing Artistic Director for Missouri Repertory Theatre and the University of Missouri-Kansas City Theatres debuts this Autumn.

Probably the last place Peter Altman ever expected to see his image was on a billboard alongside the Burlington Northern train lot looking down at Kansas City's old Municipal Airport and the Missouri River beyond. And this is one of just many Altman billboards that currently grace the metropolis.

In his recent years Altman had worked in the more genteel environs of Boston University where he served as founding and producing director of the Huntington Theater. At Huntington, Altman built a company from scratch to one that serves 150,000 patrons annually. He also impressed the Missouri Rep search committee with his ability to balance budgets for an 800 seat theater, a feat not easily accomplished.

But the Missouri Rep was ready for a change, and so was Altman. As Interim Rep executive director Danny Baker notes, "When there is a change in artistic leadership, it just seemed appropriate to herald it to a wider public than the Rep normally reaches."

The changes are indeed far reaching. This past year witnessed the retirement of artistic director George Keathley, 74, and executive director Jim Costin, 64. In accepting the position as producing artistic director for Missouri Repertory Theatre and the University of Missouri-Kansas City theaters, Altman assumes all of Keathley's responsibilities and at least some of Costin's,

Altman was attracted to the position not only for the creative control he might wield but also because of the solid foundation that he was inheriting. Missouri Rep has developed a national reputation as one of the best university-based theaters in the country.
"I wanted a new challenge," says Altman, "and what I saw was a theater that has the real potential to grow and improve."

Baker anticipates a wider variety of dramatic literature in Altman's play selection and a wider ranger of artists creating work for Kansas City audiences. The 2000-2001 season, which Altman was responsible for selecting, reflects the range of his interests.

The season kicks off on September 8 with something of a standard, the always provocative George Bernard Shaw's timeless Major Barbara. But the season takes a turn to the less tried and true immediately thereafter.

 

On October 13, Kansas City audiences will experience the Midwest premier of Philip Kan Gotanda's powerful drama, Sisters Matsumoto. The play follows the story of three Japanese-American sisters interned during World War II in relocation camps far from their home. It is based on the harrowing real life experiences of Gotanda's family. The play will be directed by Sharon Ott. Even today, few Americans understand how FDR, the Supreme Court, and even the ACLU could consent to the mass deportation of law-abiding American citizens without benefit of due process. (Oddly, the one significant person to protest was J. Edgar Hoover).

The third show in the season line-up, Machinal,
is equally adventurous. American playwright and journalist, Sophie Treadwell, wrote this innovative work in 1928, but it has not yet been performed in Kansas City. The proto-feminist play traces the experiences of a young female office worker who feels trapped in the "machine-like" grip of a mechanical and indifferent world and who loathes the husband and baby she is supposed to love. The only happiness she does finds is an affair with a young outlaw (played in the original Broadway production by then unknown Clark Gable) that she meets in a speakeasy. The play, which was triumphantly revived in New York in 1990, is directed by Rita Brainin and makes its Kansas City debut on January 26.

One play remains to be announced, and the season closes with Stephen's Sondheim's lively and irreverent musical, Company, directed by Larry Carpenter.

The Missouri Repertory Theater is located on the UMKC campus just east of the Country Club Plaza. Patrons can now order tickets online through the theater's slightly tricky website, MissouriRepTheatre.com. Remember, in the adventurous new world of the Missouri Rep, the "r" comes before "e."