Missouri Rep to stage play about artist at Nelson-Atkins

A Sunday on La Grand Jatte by Georges Seurat.

The Missouri Rep is heading over to the Neson-Atkins Museum of Art  for a musical about neo-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat.

A joint production of the Stephen Sondhem classical musical Sunday in the Park with George allows the Rep to start its 2015-16 season while the Spencer Theater is undergoing renovation. The work there is expected to be completed in the fall and includes new lighting and acoustic design, a new stage floor, new restrooms, a second floor lounge, and an expansion of the lobby of the performing arts center.

This production will mark a unique major production of the Pulitzer Prize winning musical produced within the context of one of the nation’s great art museums, the two institutions said in a press release.

Performances run from Sept. 11–Oct. 4.

Here’s more from the press release:

“We are delighted to be the venue for this incredible musical that celebrates creativity and art,” said Zugazagoitia. “This partnership between two great Kansas City institutions is fitting, since the story is all about the quest for artistic brilliance.”

Directed by Dr. Rosen, Sunday in the Park with George is the first show of KC Rep’s 2015-2016 season. Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s stunning Pulitzer-Prize winning masterpiece is one of the most beloved musicals in the contemporary canon. The struggles of the great painter Georges Seurat to complete his famous “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” are paired with the story of his fictional grandson, also an artist, who struggles with an artistic crisis of his own. When the two worlds collide, the nature and meaning of art comes to life in one of the most stunning climaxes in contemporary musical theater. Widely acknowledged as one of Sondheim’s most breathtaking scores, Sunday merges past and present into a beautiful, poignant evocation of life, love and the quest for artistic brilliance.

“Sunday in the Park with George is the perfect collaboration with our colleagues at the Nelson-Atkins Museum,” stated Artistic Director, Eric Rosen. “The musical exists at the intersection between theater and visual art, and is about the tension between Impressionist and contemporary art. I can’t imagine a more meaningful environment than the Atkins Auditorium, which sits stunningly between the museum’s grand neo-classical original building and the beautiful galleries of the Bloch building. Lovers of visual art will love this exploration of the artist at work, and lovers of theater will have a chance to see a world class production of one of the masterpieces of the last century. Nelson-Atkins patrons and Rep audiences are in for a truly remarkable experience.”