‘Kansas City Choir Boy’: Theater Review

The Prototype festival of opera and musical theater has been increasingly buzzed-about since its inception two years ago, but the New York event’s third edition has hit the publicity mother lode with Todd Almond’s theatricalized song cycle Kansas City Choir Boy. The composer’s co-star in the piece is Courtney Love, which no doubt accounts for why the production was fully sold-out within minutes of tickets going on sale.

It’s indeed startling to see the 50-year-old rocker with no shortage of personal baggage appearing in a small basement theater seating approximately 80. The piece is performed in the round, in a space so intimate that one can actually smell the performer as she makes her way through the audience (she wears a lot of perfume).

Love’s presence brings an undeniable charge to the proceedings, which concern a Midwestern musician (Almond) who learns through a television news broadcast that his former girlfriend, Athena (Love), has been murdered, years after decamping to New York City in pursuit of stardom.

Source: hollywoodreporter.com