© 2024 KMUW
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

On Stage: Local Theater

Just in time for Riverfest is Mosley Street Melodrama's production of Gone with the Windwagon, an original script by local writer Carol Hughes that follows the tides of changing fortune for one Miss Annie Bellum. 

Her challenges include finding a way to deal with her dwindling finances without actually working at anything; preparing for the arrival of the legendary Windwagon Smith; and avoiding the attentions of Mr. Frank Lee Scarlet. Audience participation paired with a lighthearted look at our city's quirks and traditions make for plenty of laughs. Gone with the Windwagon is onstage at Mosley Street Melodrama through July 13th.

Meanwhile, at Prairie Pines dinner theatre in Maize, there is the murder mystery Mayhem on the Midway. This lively script was co-written by Wichita's own Scott Noah and Christi Moore, who have worked together for 30 years. Moore directs and Noah stars in three separate roles in this production. You can see Mayhem on the Midway at Prairie Pines through July 6th.

And the Kechi Playhouse is also featuring a Kansas playwright this month: Bus Stop, by William Inge, is onstage June 7th through the 30th. This play about six people stranded by the snow at a diner in small town Kansas was nominated for four Tony Awards when it debuted on Broadway in 1955, including Best Play. The piece began life as a one-act play, titled People in the Wind, and was reportedly inspired by people whom Inge had met in Tonganoxie.

Sanda Moore Coleman received an MFA in creative writing from Wichita State University in 1991. Since then, she has been the arts and community editor for The Martha's Vineyard Times, a teaching fellow at Harvard University, and an assistant editor at Image. In 2011, she received the Maureen Egan Writers Exchange prize for fiction from Poets & Writers magazine. She has spent more than 30 years performing, reviewing, and writing for theatre.