Music Theatre of Wichita

Music Theatre Of Wichita

Music Theatre of Wichita is a highly regarded summer musical theatre, which has produced over 200 Broadway-scale productions during its four decades of operation. The theatre is also recognized as a first-class training ground for upcoming theatrical artists. Each summer a resident company of college-aged performers and technicians works hand in hand with established professionals from Broadway and Hollywood. Current performing artists who spent formative summers there include Kristin Chenoweth, Kelli O'Hara, Matt Bogart, Lauren Kennedy, Kimberly Faure, Kristin Beth Williams, Stanley Bahorek, Josh Prince, Kim Huber, Jessica Boevers Bogart, Robert Hartwell, Jenni Barber, Anne Horak, Brian Spitulnik, Chelsea Packard, Edward Staudenmayer, Shina Ann Morris, Gabrielle Ruiz, Darren Ritchie, Arthur Marks, Tad Hilgenbrinck, and many more. Over 1,000 aspiring singer-dancer-actors audition each March for the resident performing company.

Founded in 1972 to provide summertime entertainment inside the 2100-seat Concert Hall of the newly built Century II Complex in downtown Wichita, Kansas, the organization has had only three artistic producers to date: founding producing director Jim Miller (1972-1979), John Holly (1980-1987) and current producing artistic director Wayne Bryan (1988-present).

Five large-scale musicals are produced in-house each summer, during an intense 10-week period, with performances taking place from Wednesday to Sunday every other week. In its four decades of operation, the repertoire has included one world premiere (the revised version of the collegiate musical Good News!, subsequently licensed by Tams-Witmark, performed in over 300 productions internationally, and recorded for TER / Jay music); and many regional premieres, including Honk! (recorded as the American Cast Album, available at the theatre's web site and Amazon.com), and a revised Singin' in the Rain (also preserved by TER / Jay music).

Beginning in 2004 The Walt Disney Company, in partnership with Music Theatre International, has selected Music Theatre of Wichita as the site for several regional professional premieres, including Beauty and the Beast (2004), Aida (2005), High School Musical (2007), High School Musical 2 (2009) and The Little Mermaid (2011). Sets and Costumes for many of the MTWichita shows have become popular throughout North America, and can be viewed at the theatre's website.

The theatre's many youth-oriented initiatives include an Apprentice Program, an Intern Program, a Teen Choir, and the Jester Awards, annually saluting excellence in high school musical theatre production in southcentral Kansas. Beginning in June of 2009, two Jester recipients have been sent each year to New York for the National High School Musical Theater Awards (the "Jimmys"). In the first year of this nationwide competition, the first place winner as Outstanding Actress was Jenny Wine, from Music Theatre of Wichita.

The theatre has garnered favorable press from such theatrical writers as Peter Filichia and Robert Osborne, and has received a host of local and state awards for excellence. Music Theatre of Wichita is the highest subscribed non-profit arts organization in the state of Kansas. The theatre's current annual budget is just over three million dollars. More information is available at www.MTWichita.org