Mother’s Day weekend is still a few days away in Kansas City, but the calendar is already packed. Kansas City Repertory Theatre opens its 19-show run of The Wizard of Oz on Thursday at the Spencer Theatre, with a cast and crew of more than 50 bringing the story to the stage and tickets starting at $44.
Theater is only one part of the weekend surge. Last weekend’s Brookside Art Annual kicked off a marathon month for art fairs, and this stretch now spreads across the metro and onto the Missouri side of the state line.
On Saturday, the Lenexa Art Fair will feature 50 regional artists along with jazz bands, food trucks and face painters, all with free entry. The same day brings the first-ever Arterie Fest, which will stretch from the Missouri side of the line through a set of museum and campus stops. The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art will host a block party, book sale and brass band performance, Kansas City Art Institute will stage its End of Semester Exhibition + Sale, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art will offer art activities for all ages.
For readers who want a more social stop, KC Bier Co will hold its third annual Neighborhood BOCK Party on Saturday. Eight local breweries and four home brewing clubs will pour unlimited samples, admission starts at $30, and part of the proceeds goes to Happy Bottoms, the charity that provides diapers for those in need. The Water Lantern Festival follows Saturday evening at Frank A. Theis Park, with arrivals between 5:30 and 8 p.m. and tickets starting at $34.99.
The weekend also ends at the table. Rozzelle Court Restaurant at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is taking reservations for a Mother’s Day brunch, served buffet style with limited walk-in availability. Adult tickets are $68 and children ages 4 to 12 are $28.
The draw is not just how many events are packed into three days, but how evenly they are spread. Families can stay on one side of the metro or cross into the other, move from a museum to a brewery to a lantern release, and still find something that fits the day. For Kansas City, the answer to what Mother’s Day weekend looks like this year is simple: full, local and impossible to fit into one stop.
