Menu
Our 2023-2024 season includes inspiring and well-loved stories. Featuring the talents of children from ages 8-18, these are shows you won’t want to miss!
To learn about auditions, click here: Audition Information
Want to book a Field Trip? Contact Chrissi Edwards at chrissi@firstactkc.org.
The “Premiere Series” label gives us the opportunity to stretch our boundaries and pick new, exciting, and less standard shows. Second, it allows us to be upfront with parents and families about some advanced or difficult material and topics covered in these shows. No show on our season will compromise First Act KC’s core values, but we firmly believe that by engaging with difficult topics through the lens of theatre, and by doing it will full-knowledge of our faith-based and educational mission, we are able to give our students a safe and nurturing space to learn and understand a wider range of theatre.
Our “Family Series” shows will be the classic titles you’re used to, plus a few new ones. These will be the First Act KC productions you know and love – accessible for all ages, all audiences, and all families! And plenty of amazing singing, dancing, and acting that will leave you saying, “I can’t believe that was a youth theatre production!”
This musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s hit play The Matchmaker bursts with humor, romance, energetic dance and some of the greatest songs in musical theatre history. The romantic and comic exploits of Dolly Gallagher-Levi, turn-of-the-century matchmaker and “woman who arranges things,” are certain to thrill and entertain audiences again and again. Hello, Dolly! premiered on Broadway on January 16, 1964 at the St. James Theatre. Opening with Carol Channing in the title role, the show ultimately played for 2,844 performances, making it – at the time – the longest-running Broadway musical in history.
** School Day Matinee
Set in the 1940s in the fictional town of Hohman, Indiana, the musical follows 9-year-old Ralphie Parker and his quest for the Holy Grail of Christmas gifts—an Official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. Rebuffed at every turn with a similar echoing response, Ralphie plots numerous schemes to achieve his desperate desire for the coveted BB gun. All the iconic scenes from the movie are here: Ralphie’s friend, Flick, getting his tongue stuck to the flagpole; his brother, Randy, getting dressed in his snowsuit; the bullies, Farkus and Dill; the leg lamp award; the bunny suit; Christmas dinner; and many others. The delightfully versatile score ranges from gentle ballads to show-stopping full-ensemble numbers.
** School-Day Matinee
Winner of the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Elwood P. Dowd insists on including his friend Harvey in all of his sister Veta’s social gatherings. Trouble is, Harvey is an imaginary six-and-a-half-foot-tall rabbit. To avoid future embarrassment for her family—and especially for her daughter, Myrtle Mae—Veta decides to have Elwood committed to a sanitarium. At the sanitarium, a frantic Veta explains to the staff that her years of living with Elwood’s hallucination have caused her to see Harvey also, and so the doctors mistakenly commit her instead of her mild-mannered brother. The truth comes out, however; Veta is freed, and the search is on for Elwood, who eventually arrives at the sanitarium of his own volition, looking for Harvey. But it seems that Elwood and his invisible companion have had a strange influence on more than one of the doctors. Only at the end does Veta realize that maybe Harvey isn’t so bad after all.
It is First Act’s policy to not cancel shows for any reason. If guests choose not to attend a show they have tickets for, no refunds or exchanges will be provided.
On the very rare occasion when First Act Theatre Arts must cancel a show due to inclement weather, guests may exchange their tickets at no charge for another performance of the same show or get credit towards another show within the same season. To exchange tickets for another performance of the same show, guests will need to present their canceled tickets at the theatre box office before their preferred performance. The request will be accommodated as long as there are tickets available. The theatre box office opens one hour prior to performance. If a guest chooses to get credit towards another show, they must call the First Act Theatre Arts Box Office within 30 days of the cancelled performance.
Learn. Create. Inspire. Believe.