History
Since opening in 2011, the Kauffman Center has hosted more than 3 million attendees and expanded artistic opportunities for Kansas City schools and students.
Photo by Cody Boston.
Kansas City, MO – In December 2018, the Kauffman Center celebrates more than seven years of bringing extraordinary and diverse performing arts experiences to the Kansas City community. Since its 2011 grand opening, the Kauffman Center has hosted over 2,150 performances welcoming more than 3.2 million guests through its doors. Its wide range of programming continues to shine a spotlight on Kansas City’s own vibrant arts community while attracting national and international talent from all genres. Resident companies the Kansas City Ballet, Kansas City Symphony, and Lyric Opera of Kansas City, along with numerous other community arts organizations continue to thrive in their Kauffman Center performance home.
The Kauffman Center’s mission focuses on providing diverse and extraordinary performing arts experiences for audiences of all ages and interests. Kansas City’s youngest arts enthusiasts from local schools enjoy dozens of performances at the Kauffman Center annually through the Center’s educational outreach program Open Doors. More than 300,000 students have attended a matinee performance, and the Kauffman Center’s Open Doors Transportation Fund provided bussing assistance for more than 150,000 of those students.
In addition to hosting more than 260 school matinees, the Kauffman Center provides community access to a wide range of public performances through the Open Doors Community Tickets program. “We continue to expand our programming offered to the community to ensure high-quality performing arts experiences are affordable and often free for many of Kansas City’s most deserving citizens through our Open Doors Program initiatives,” noted Paul Schofer, Kauffman Center President & CEO. Through a network of social service agencies, the Kauffman Center has provided more than 3,500 free tickets to underserved young people and families. In addition, the Open Doors Community Tickets program recently expanded to include ticket discounts for students, educators, veterans, and military service members.
The Kauffman Center also provides a wide range of free or low-cost programming to the general public, including the Kauffman Center’s own Future Stages Festival. This annual free community event has welcomed more than 25,000 people and provided opportunities for 3,500 performers, mostly youth, to perform on stage since the event’s inception in 2014. Audiences also have affordable access to performances with tickets priced as low as $15, such as the popular National Geographic Live series.
With more than 3 million visitors in its first seven years, the Kauffman Center eagerly continues to expand its reach in connecting the performing arts to the greater community. “The Kauffman Center stands as a cultural cornerstone for Kansas City’s thriving and vibrant artistic community,” reflected Schofer. “We are thrilled to offer a diverse array of performing arts experiences that will continue drawing millions of visitors and arts enthusiasts for many decades to come.”
Click here to view images highlighting Kauffman Center audiences and performances since 2011.
Kauffman Center Milestones at a Glance
- 3,200,000 guests have visited the Kauffman Center since opening in 2011
- 2,150 performances occurred
- 325,303 students and educators attended 262 school matinees
- 154,885 students received Open Doors bus transportation assistance to attend school matinees
- 3,574 individuals from social service agencies have been awarded free Community Tickets to Kauffman Center performances
Coming Soon to the Kauffman Center Presents Series:
- January 9: National Geographic Live – Ronan Donavan, Social by Nature
- January 12: Live from Here with Chris Thile
- March 13: Anoushka Shankar
- March 30: The Summit – The Manhattan Transfer Meets Take 6
- June 11: Snarky Puppy
- June 28: Napoleon Dynamite
New programs will be announced throughout the year. Visit kauffmancenter.org to learn more and sign up for email updates.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get more details about upcoming performances at the Kauffman Center and behind-the-scenes access.
The NEA Award, among 1,023 granted nationally, will support the Kauffman Center’s 2nd annual Future Stages Festival to be held on Sunday, June 28th.
Through its grant-making to thousands of nonprofits each year, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) promotes opportunities for people in communities across America to experience the arts and exercise their creativity.
In the second major grant announcement of fiscal year 2015, the NEA will make a $10,000 award to Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts to support the second annual Future Stages Festival, a free event for the entire community that provides opportunities for future artists to take center stage at the Kauffman Center. The NEA will make 1,023 awards totaling $74.3 million nationwide in this funding round.
NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, “The NEA is committed to advancing learning, fueling creativity, and celebrating the arts in cities and towns across the United States. Funding these new projects like the one from Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts represents an investment in both local communities and our nation’s creative vitality.”
“We are committed to shining a spotlight on the talented youth in our community and celebrating the diverse array of performing arts experiences available to both participants and audiences in Kansas City. Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is deeply appreciative of the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, providing recognition of the value of nurturing and inspiring future artists and audiences,” stated Paul Schofer, President & CEO of Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
As proud mother Lisa Lala stated after the inaugural Future Stages Festival in 2014, seeing her 14-year-old daughter perform a silk solo with the Quixotic School of the Performing Arts at the Kauffman Center was “nothing short of heart-stopping.” When daughter, Gigi, was asked what it was like being on the Muriel Kauffman Theatre stage, she answered “This was something I’ve dreamed of all my life. It was amazing.”
Future Stages Festival will be held at the Kauffman Center on Sunday, June 28, 2015 from 11 am – 4 pm. The free one-day festival invites youth and families to experience a diverse range of performances and interactive arts activities. Future Stages Festival, an extension of the Kauffman Center’s Open Doors Spotlight on Youth program, also provides opportunities for youth and community arts organizations to perform on stage at Kauffman Center.
Future Stages Festival is free and open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to register at kauffmancenter.org/futurestages to receive the latest event updates and schedule for performances and activities.
ABOUT THE OPEN DOORS PROGRAM
The Kauffman Center Open Doors program connects young people to the arts through three major components:
The Open Doors Spotlight on Youth program inspires and nurtures the next generation of artists by giving young performers the opportunity to perform on the stages of the Kauffman Center.
Kauffman Center is celebrating diversity in the arts with the second annual Future Stages Festival this June. Building on the success of the 2014 inaugural event during which Kauffman Center welcomed more than 6,000 guests and hosted 600 performers, the second annual Future Stages Festival is a free community event that showcases youth in the performing arts.
The Open Doors Community Ticket Fund offers access to programming at the Kauffman Center for youth and families through reduced price or free tickets.
The Open Doors Transportation Fund offers funding to schools in the metropolitan area so that bringing students to the Kauffman Center for school matinee performances is more affordable.
The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts would like to thank our official building sponsors, Aristocrat Motors and Mercedes-Benz of Kansas City.
To join the Twitter conversation about this announcement, please use#NEASpring2015. To find out more about how NEA grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Pipe Organ Documentary Airing on KCPT March 16 at 9 p.m.
On March 1st, nearly 600 donors enjoyed the world premiere of Kingdom Come: The Making of Casavant Opus 3875. This fascinating documentary goes behind the scenes to chronicle the design, manufacture and unveiling of the Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant Organ, Opus 3875. You can watch the film when it is featured on KCPT on Monday, March 16 at 9 p.m.
Produced and directed by the Kauffman Foundation, the project was presented as a gift to Julia Irene Kauffman, the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation, the Kauffman Center staff and the Kansas City artistic community, on behalf of the associates and board of trustees of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
The film traces the complex task to create a powerful custom-built pipe organ, known as “The King of Instruments,” for a modern concert hall. It records the artistry and craftwork of the men and women at the Casavant Frères workshop in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. The story follows truckloads of handmade parts arriving in Kansas City and documents the elaborate process to assemble the massive five-story support structure, delicate instrumentation and precise individual voicing of each of the organ’s 5,548 pipes.
In addition to showing the making of the organ, the film tells the story by featuring interviews with key people in Canada and Kansas City. With the instrument in place, the film records history in the making as world-renowned organist James David Christie takes the stage at Helzberg Hall to play the organ for the first time.
Ultimately, the film tells the story of a city’s commitment to the arts and the imagination, invention and careful human touch that inspires a creative legacy for musical artists and audiences to admire for generations to come.
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President and CEO Paul Schofer
Kauffman Center will build upon three years of fiscally-sound operations, community engagement and innovative artistic successes both nationally and within the Kansas City community.
Kansas City, MO – This week, the Kauffman Center celebrated three years of bringing extraordinary and diverse performing arts experiences to the Kansas City community with an inaugural gathering of key stakeholders, including the Kauffman Center Board of Directors and Mayor Sly James.
Chairman of the Board, Julia Irene Kauffman welcomed an intimate crowd of supporters Tuesday evening and introduced President & CEO Paul J. Schofer to offer insight into the operational milestones, artistic successes and future focus of the Center.
Since the opening, Kauffman Center has hosted more than 830 public performances welcoming more than 1.3 million audience members and guests through its doors. Its diverse programming continues to shine a spotlight on Kansas City’s own vibrant arts community and attract national talent from all genres. Resident companies the Kansas City Ballet, Kansas City Symphony, and Lyric Opera of Kansas City, along with numerous other community arts organizations, have experienced record attendance in their new performance homes.
“We will continue to provide diverse and extraordinary performing arts experiences for audiences of all ages and interests to the tune of nearly 300 public on-stage performances annually,” states Paul J. Schofer, president and CEO of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. “The area in which we will increase our focus is in community engagement. Kauffman Center will be creating more opportunities and more events for everyone in our community to experience, learn from and be inspired by the performing arts.”
Kauffman Center’s vision of serving everyone in the community is evident from its commitment to providing children and families access to the Center’s performances. More than 127,000 students have attended a matinee performance at the Kauffman Center and more than 68,000 school children have been provided transportation funding through the Kauffman Center’s Open Doors Transportation Fund. Additionally, Open Doors Community Tickets continues to provide opportunities for Kansas City individuals and families to attend performances at no cost through partnerships with social service agencies.
In addition, a wide range of free or low-cost programming is offered throughout the year at Kauffman Center, including Kansas City Symphony free Happy Hour Concerts and Kauffman Center’s own Future Stages Festival, an annual free community event which welcomed 6,000 people and provided opportunity for 600 performers, mostly youth, to perform on stage as part of the event last June. Audiences are also able to experience low-cost presentations and performances priced as low as $10, such as the popular National Geographic Live series, part of Kauffman Center Presents.
Along with artistic successes, Kauffman Center’s first three years have been marked by solid financials due, in no small part, to efficiencies created within the Center’s operating and staffing models and from financial and volunteer support within the Kansas City community. Effective management and strong annual fundraising support have allowed Kauffman Center to operate in the black for each of its first three years, which is considered an exceptional accomplishment in comparison with performing arts centers nationally.
“We currently operate in an environment in which numerous arts organizations across the country are in financial disarray, facing financial shortfalls, labor strikes and, in some cases, bankruptcy. At the same time, the performing arts in Kansas City seem to be thriving, with many local organizations having banner years. Kauffman Center’s overall contributed and sponsorship revenue has increased by 73% since our grand opening year,” explains Schofer.
Strong support from donors in the community have been a vital component to the Kauffman Center’s successes enabling the organization to complete its capital campaign, achieve first phase of endowment funding and reach annual fundraising goals.
“We are grateful for the incredible support we have received from the Kansas City community. For long-term success, we can’t be complacent. Our goal is to further stabilize our annual revenue model. To do so, we will be quickly moving into phase two of building our endowment. At the same time, we will continue to develop our business programs – and individual giving programs – to strengthen the Center’s overall financial structure,” stated Schofer.
Kauffman Center has received national and international recognition within its first three years. Earlier this year, CNN reported that the Kauffman Center is one of only two American venues included in Emporis’ rankings of The World’s 15 Most Beautiful Concert Halls. Paul Schofer asserts that Kauffman Center’s success is a direct reflection on Kansas City’s forward momentum. “The Kauffman Center has established itself as an iconic landmark in the Kansas City skyline. It not only shows the world our city’s passion and appreciation for the performing arts, but it symbolizes the transformation of Kansas City’s urban core; and reflects the vibrant energy, creativity and forward-thinking that this community has embraced.”
KAUFFMAN CENTER’S FIRST THREE YEARS AT A GLANCE
– 1,300,000 people attended Kauffman Center events.
– 836 performances occurred in first three years.
-127,082 school children attended student matinee programming.
– Kauffman Center has operated in the black in each of its first three years.
COMING SOON TO THE KAUFFMAN CENTER PRESENTS SERIES
– October 19: WORDLESS! Art Spiegelman and Phillip Johnston
– October 26: Virtuosic organist, Cameron Carpenter
– November 21: Burt Bacharach
– February through June: National Geographic Live speaker series
– June 28: Future Stages Festival (free event)
New programs will be announced throughout the year. Visit kauffmancenter.org or download the Kauffman Center mobile app to learn more and sign up for email updates and presale offers.
ABOUT THE KAUFFMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, a major center for music, opera, theater, and dance designed by Moshe Safdie, opened in 2011. Serving as a cultural cornerstone for Kansas City and the region, the Kauffman Center delivers extraordinary and diverse performing arts experiences. Recently honored as one of the World’s 15 Most Beautiful Concert Halls, the Kauffman Center attracts some of the world’s most renowned performers and entertainers.
Through educational outreach programs and community enrichment, the Kauffman Center supports Kansas City as a cultural destination.
More information on the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is available at www.kauffmancenter.org.
The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts would like to thank our official building sponsors, Aristocrat Motors and Mercedes-Benz of Kansas City, and extend special thanks to Sprint for its generous support of our 2014-2015 season.
KANSAS CITY, MO – Today, the Kauffman Center Board of Directors named Paul J. Schofer as its President and CEO. Schofer served as vice president of operations and chief financial officer of the Kauffman Center since March 2012.
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