KC Ballet to launch Kauffman Center season with 'Tom Sawyer'

The Kansas City Ballet hopes to make a bit of history with its inaugural season at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, which the company announced today.

The 2011-2012 season will include a world-premiere, two classics and a program showcasing the work of major American choreographers. It kicks off with a brand new three-act ballet based on Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer." The production will feature choreography by William Whitener, the ballet's artistic director, and music by Maury Yeston, best known as the award-winning Broadway composer of the musicals "Nine," "Grand Hotel" and "Titanic."

Yeston said that while there are several well-known short ballets based on American subject matter, such as Aaron Copland's "Rodeo," he believes "Tom Sawyer -- A Ballet in Three Acts" will be the first full-length work based on an American literary classic and created by Americans for an American ballet company.

Yeston said he began work on "Tom Sawyer" years ago. He said Whitener was the ideal choreographer for the project after he watched a DVD of "Gingham Shift," a Whitener ballet set to the music of Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer.

"Tom Sawyer" will open on Oct. 14 and continue through Oct. 23, 2011.

The 2011-2012 season will continue with the ballet's annual production of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker," featuring the choreography of company's longtime artistic director, the late Todd Bolender. The production runs Dec. 3-Dec. 24. The company has scheduled 21 performances and four school matinees with three casts of Kansas City Ballet dancers and more than 200 kids from the company's ballet school.

Beginning Feb. 17, 2012, the company presents Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" with choreography by Ib Andersen, artistic director of Ballet Arizona. The productions runs through Feb. 26.

The season concludes with "Masters of American Dance," which will include Tckaikosvky's "Serenade" by George Balanchine; Debussy's "Afternoon of a Faun" by Jerome Robbins; Handel's "Les Gentilhommes" by Peter Martins; and Samuel Barber's "Souvenirs" by Todd Bolender. The Kansas City Symphony will perform music for each production.

This story was originally published November 9, 2010 at 2:00 PM with the headline "KC Ballet to launch Kauffman Center season with 'Tom Sawyer'."