Kansas City is a great arts town and there’s a lot going on, particularly on our city’s stages, this weekend.
We leave you this week with scenes from two new productions. First, the fast paced farcical thriller comedy, The Mystery of Irma Vep at the Kansas City Repertory Theater.
Then there’s the political rock n rock musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at the Unicorn Theater.
This week on The Local Show, Randy Mason sits down with local filmmaker Terence O’Malley to discuss his latest film Tom & Harry: The Boss and The President which examines the complicated relationship between Harry Truman and Tom Pendergast. We profile three local mothers who are caught in The Low Wage Trap which puts them at risk of losing childcare subsidies with even the slightest increase in pay at their jobs. Editor Steve Paul talks about the new book, Kansas City Noir, which features short stories set in the seedy underbelly of Kansas City from some of the area’s most talented writers. And we look at an outreach program of the Kansas City Symphony which gives grade school children an opportunity to get hands on with the tools of the trade for musicians.
A new film that documents the relationship between President Harry Truman and Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast opens this weekend at the Glenwood Theater in Overland Park, Screenland-Crown Center, Screenland-Armour and the Pharaoh Theatre in Independence.
Tom and Harry: The Boss and the President is the third Kansas City centered documentary for attorney and filmmaker Terence O’Malley. He also directed Nelly Don: A Stitch in Time and Black Hand Strawman: The History of Organized Crime in Kansas City.
How many of us would turn down a pay raise? I am sure most of us would say: Are you crazy?
Believe it or not, for thousands of low income parents in our bi-state area getting even 25 cents more an hour is a terrifying proposition because it means they will lose thousands of dollars a month in day care subsidies for their children. Producer Rich Miller headed over to our areas largest low income day care center, Operation Breakthrough, to talk with three mothers about this extraordinary issue of The Low Wage Trap where to better yourself would actually make you worse off.
In this past session of the Missouri legislature, Republican Senator Rob Schaaf introduced a bill called, “The Low Wage Trap Elimination Act” which would have prevented low income Missourians from losing their child care subsidies overnight should they begin making a little more money. It passed the legislature, but the funding required to implement the program has been withheld by the governor.
