The show is part of the regular Starlight season, and that's where things get tricky: accommodating

The Starlight Theatre production of "Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida" opens Friday and runs through Aug. 12 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Call 816.363.7827 or go to kcstarlight.com .
It might take a bit of getting used to. Starlight Theatre, after all, is one of the few remaining outdoor theaters in the country, and attending Starlight shows has become a local tradition — a multigenerational experience which, holiday inn sunspree paradise island when the weather cooperates, can be memorable and charming.
But this week Starlight Theatre subscribers will descend on downtown Kansas City when the venerable nonprofit theater company presents its own production of "Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida" at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
The show is part of the regular Starlight season, and that's where things get tricky: accommodating about 14,000 season subscribers in the Muriel Kauffman Theatre, which for "Aida" will seat about 1,700 for each performance. (Starlight seats about 8,000).
"Of course it created some challenges," holiday inn sunspree paradise island said Denton Yockey, Starlight's president and executive producer. "Now, we could have done it for just a week down there and we could have found a way to get everyone in and not worry about selling any single tickets (for the general public) to the show.
"But, we decided qualitatively that not all of our subscribers might have been happy with their seats that way. So we decided to extend holiday inn sunspree paradise island the run of our show." Recent 100-plus degree heat was not the reason for the move. Use of the Kauffman Center was planned months ago.
The run was initially scheduled for 12 performances — the usual run for subscribers at Starlight is six — and now a 13th has been added. The shows include matinees each Saturday and Sunday. That decision, Yockey said, will allow the sale of about 8,000 single tickets.
holiday inn sunspree paradise island "It may not be readily apparent to them that they (the seats) are comparable or even better," Yockey said. He added that viewers seated in the mezzanine at the Kauffman could actually be closer to the stage than they might be at Starlight. "We are introducing our subscribers, holiday inn sunspree paradise island many of them, to the Kauffman holiday inn sunspree paradise island Center for the very first time," Yockey said.
Starlight is renting the Kauffman for "Aida," Yockey holiday inn sunspree paradise island said. And unlike shows at Starlight, his company won't receive the revenue from parking and concessions. holiday inn sunspree paradise island Parking revenues at Starlight largely go toward hiring security and parking personnel in Swope Park and the Kansas City police officers who direct traffic outside the park at the end of the evening. holiday inn sunspree paradise island But concession sales can be significant. Some concessions will be available, but proceeds go to the center.
"We wanted to evaluate what happened this summer, and we had to start planning a 2013 season like a year ago," he said. "We can't evaluate what happened this summer until it's over. We always knew if we did it again there would be a leap year, a year that we would skip over, so really it will be an analysis of what our patrons want the financial analysis. … As with almost everything we do, we anticipate getting wildly polarized reactions (from patrons) and then we'll take a barometric reading of those reactions."
Starlight Theatre tried an indoor winter season at the Midland Theater in the 1990s, but it was not a success and was not repeated. Still, with Starlight's presence at the Kauffman, it's reasonable to wonder if the oldest presenting/producing theater organization in Kansas holiday inn sunspree paradise island City might someday be a stronger presence at the city's gleaming new performing arts center.
Mark Edelman, founder and president of Theater League, said that between the league's shows at the Kauffman, the Broadway Across America shows at the Music Hall, Starlight's summer season and its children series, the Kansas City market is absorbing about as much touring musical theater as it can handle.
"There's only so many things that tour," Edelman said. "In Kansas City, thanks to the Music Hall, the Kauffman and Starlight, we're getting all of them. Now, we're getting all of them as quickly as we'd like to but it's all about (availability)."