2024-2025 Season
50 Years of OCTA!
Join us for five revivals to celebrate 50 years of producing high quality, engaging, and thought-provoking theatre in Kansas City.
Please note that evening performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. Matinee performances will begin at 2:00pm.
Proof
Written by David Auburn
Directed by Heather Ives
September 6th-22nd, 2024
“On the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, Catherine, a troubled young woman, has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, a famous mathematician. Now, following his death, she must deal with her own volatile emotions; the arrival of her estranged sister, Claire; and the attentions of Hal, a former student of her father’s who hopes to find valuable work in the 103 notebooks that her father left behind. Over the long weekend that follows, a burgeoning romance and the discovery of a mysterious notebook draw Catherine into the most difficult problem of all: How much of her father’s madness—or genius—will she inherit?” (Dramatists Play Service)
The Cast of PROOF (in order of appearance):
ROBERT– Jerry Cohagan
CATHERINE– Elsa Bernauer
HAL– Connor Eastman
CLAIRE– Emily Bridges
Assassins
Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
Directed by Michael Golliher
October 18th-November 3rd, 2024
“Assassins lays bare the lives of nine individuals who assassinated or tried to assassinate the President of the United States, in a one-act historical “revusical” that explores the dark side of the American experience. From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, writers, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, bend the rules of time and space, taking us on a nightmarish roller coaster ride in which assassins and would-be assassins from different historical periods meet, interact and inspire each other to harrowing acts in the name of the American Dream.” (Music Theatre International)
The Cast of Assassins:
JOHN WILKES BOOTH/PROPRIETOR: Charles Meacham
BALLADEER/LEE HARVEY OSWALD: Collin Kessler
LEON CZOLGOSZ: Spencer McIntire
GIUSEPPE ZANGARA: Doug Jones
CHARLES GUITEAU: Matt Hentges
SAM BYCK: Emerson Rapp
JOHN HINCKLEY: Peter Purin
‘SQUEAKY’ FROMME: Elise Campagna
SARA JANE MOORE: Deborah Schuler
ENSEMBLE:
‘Something Just Broke’ Soloist – Audrey Hentges
Emma Goldman – Jo Bledsoe-Collins
President Gerald Ford – Chris Hager
David Herold/James Blaine – Clayton James Henriksen
President James Garfield – Jamie Copaken
Billy – Jay Allen
**Please note, this production includes: Simulated gun violence (no operational firearms), disturbing images involving firearms, gunfire sound effects, adult language, adult situations, fog, and strobe lighting effects**
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Dogfight
Music & Lyrics by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul
Book by Peter Duchan
Directed by Stan Cole
February 7th-23rd, 2025
“It’s November 21, 1963. On the eve of their deployment to a small but growing conflict in Southeast Asia, three young Marines set out for one final boys’ night of debauchery, partying and maybe a little trouble. But, when Corporal Eddie Birdlace meets Rose, an awkward and idealistic waitress whom he enlists to win a cruel bet with his fellow recruits, she rewrites the rules of the game and teaches him the power of love and compassion.” (Music Theatre International)
Bus Stop
Written by William Inge
Directed by Jo Bledsoe-Collins
March 28th-April 13th, 2025
“In the middle of a howling snowstorm, a bus out of Kansas City pulls up at a cheerful roadside diner. All roads are blocked, and four or five weary travelers are going to have to hole up until morning. Cherie, a nightclub chanteuse in a sparkling gown and a seedy fur-trimmed jacket, is the passenger with most to worry about. She’s been pursued, made love to and finally kidnapped by a twenty-one-year-old cowboy with a ranch of his own and the romantic methods of an unusually headstrong bull. The belligerent cowhand is right behind her, ready to sling her over his shoulder and carry her, alive and kicking, all the way to Montana. Even as she’s ducking out from under his clumsy but confident embraces, and screeching at him fiercely to shut him up, she pauses to furrow her forehead and muse, “Somehow deep inside of me I got a funny feeling I’m gonna end up in Montana …” As a counterpoint to the main romance, the proprietor of the cafe and the bus driver at last find time to develop a friendship of their own; a middle-age scholar comes to terms with himself; and a young girl who works in the cafe also gets her first taste of romance.” (Dramatists Play Service)
The Musical of Musicals: The Musical!
Music by Eric Rockwell
Lyrics by Joanne Bogart
Book by Eric Rockwell & Joanne Bogart
Directed by Charlotte Gilman
May 23rd-June 8th, 2025
“The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) is a musical about musicals! In this hilarious satire of musical theatre, one story becomes five delightful musicals, each written in the distinctive style of a different master of the form, from Rodgers & Hammerstein to Stephen Sondheim. The basic plot: June is an ingenue who can’t pay the rent and is threatened by her evil landlord. Will the handsome leading man come to the rescue? The variations are: a Rodgers & Hammerstein version, set in Kansas in August, complete with a dream ballet; a Sondheim version, featuring the landlord as a tortured artistic genius who slashes the throats of his tenants in revenge for not appreciating his work; a Jerry Herman version, as a splashy star vehicle; an Andrew Lloyd Webber version, a rock musical with themes borrowed from Puccini; and a Kander & Ebb version, set in a speakeasy in Chicago.” (Concord Theatricals)