Previous Special Events

British actor Pip Utton performs his one-man show about Charles Dickens, presenting the writer as a supremely contented man now that he has left his wife, taken up with his sister-in-law, and found a second career reading his works to enraptured audiences.

Described by The Daily Telegraph as “the doyen of the one-man show,” Utton’s solo performances recreate various historic characters and fictional figures, including characters from A Christmas Carol.

Twenty Films Essential to Cinema Literacy

Think you’re film literate? Not until you’ve experienced the masterpieces of world cinema presented as part of this new series. Former Kansas City Star film critic Robert W. Butler (now a member of the Library’s Public Affairs staff) provides opening and closing remarks.

Members of the Out Loud Teen Reader's Theatre Group, made up of local adolescents interested in reading and sharing stories out loud, have spent six weeks reading and rehearsing (and having fun) to prepare their own modern twist on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

This event is co-sponsored by Kansas City Repertory Theatre, the Unicorn Theatre, and the Kansas City Actors Theatre.

Ever get the feeling that Christmas has morphed into something it was never supposed to be?

How did a celebration of joy, togetherness, love, and hope transmute into an extended shopping spree accounting for 25 percent of annual consumer spending? 

Organizers for WikiKC – a collaborative, community-driven effort to share local knowledge about Kansas City – will be on hand at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St. on Thursday, December 6, 2012, from 4-6 p.m. to show interested users how they can contribute to the effort.

The event will take place in Helzberg Auditorium. Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptop computers or tablets.

Was he an anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer? An appeaser and isolationist?

For all his public activities – financier, film producer, kingmaker, father of a president - Joseph P. Kennedy remains an elusive figure. Historian David Nasaw draws on exclusive access to Kennedy’s papers to explore the complicated personality.

Nasaw is Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Distinguished Professor of American History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Architectural historian Keith Eggener looks at the heritage of architect Louis Curtiss (1865-1924), often described as “the Frank Lloyd Wright of Kansas City” and a pioneer of the “curtain wall” design featured in his 1909 Boley Building at 11th and Walnut.

Featuring internal skeletons of steel or concrete and sheathed in lightweight glass, Curtiss’ buildings paved the way for the modern skyscraper.

Eggener is a professor of American Art and Architecture and director of graduate studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Twenty Films Essential to Cinema Literacy

Think you’re film literate? Not until you’ve experienced the masterpieces of world cinema presented as part of this new series. Former Kansas City Star film critic Robert W. Butler (now a member of the Library’s Public Affairs staff) provides opening and closing remarks.

Tchaikovsky's immortal music played in the style of AC/DC?

The Sugar Plum Fairy as a cross-dressing burlesque performer?

No, this won't be your mother's Nutcracker.

With their tongues firmly in cheek, members of Kansas City's Owen/Cox Dance Group usher in the holiday season with The Nutcracker and the Mouse King on Friday, November 30, 2012, at 6:30 p.m. at the Plaza Branch, 4801 Main St.

In the late 19th century statesman Otto von Bismarck unified Germany while embodying everything brutal and ruthless about Prussian culture. Biographer Jonathan Steinberg allows Bismarck’s friends and foes to tell the story of this complex giant: a hypochondriac with the constitution of an ox and a brutal tyrant who could easily shed tears.

Steinberg is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Modern European History at the University of Pennsylvania.