Feel for the Past
KCPT and KC Library's 'Meet the Past' Series
Stage center, a couple of comfortable chairs are set out and the lights are turned down. The conversation about to take place at the Kansas City Public Library is very definitely a performance – a show – and yet, it’s all unscripted.
For years, local and regional theater troupes have brought to life important historical figures with ties to their local area in “living history”-themed performances. They have long been featured in small community theaters – on Saturday evening performances in parks or little theaters with small budgets that can’t afford the expense of scenery or musical accompaniment. On the national level, Hal Holbrook made a name for himself portraying the white-haired Mark Twain, the old man filled with stories and perspective, with interesting commentary and life experiences. Living history can spread the word about what local historical figures meant to an area, in a sense they can spread community.
In Kansas City, living history has become a way to attract people to a newly renovated library and to make good television. And the way it happens is by literally attempting to make historical characters live and breathe for an hour at the Kansas City Public Library.
The KCPT series called Meet the Past was born from a single performance with Kansas City Public Library director Crosby Kemper III playing Charlie Rose and local historian Bill Worley playing his guest, Tom Pendergast. The initial performance was not necessarily supposed to be a one-shot performance lead to more episodes. The first take was filmed as a sort of “backdoor pilot” that was well enough received that KCPT was able to raise the money to order a full 13-episode season of “Meet the Past.” The series began airing in September 2008.
Dr. Bill Worley (left) portrays Walt Disney, whose early years as a professional artist can be traced to Kansas City, during a live filming of the Meet the Past television series.
The Meet the Past television series features Library Director Crosby Kemper III interviewing prominent historical figures (as portrayed by veteran Chautauqua performers) with Kansas City-area connections. The series will air during prime-time on KCPT (channel 19) during the 2009-10 season. There are two live events left in the series.
On Tuesday, July 14, at 6:30 p.m., Doug Mishler portrays Thomas Hart Benton, the Missouri-born artist famous for his paintings showing ordinary people doing common things. http://www.kclibrary.org/
On Tuesday, July 28, at 6:30 p.m., Jan Chapman portrays Nell Donnelly Reed, a pioneer in the field of women’s ready-to-wear clothing in the 1920s and 1930s who was largely responsible for making Kansas City one of the largest ready-to-wear clothing manufacturing centers in the world. http://www.kclibrary.org/
“The format is a pretty straightforward talk show between a guy who is alive and guy who is dead,” says Randy Mason, KCPT Producer.
Meet the Past is taped before a live studio audience in Kirk Hall, the main floor lobby of the Central Library downtown. Performances have drawn as many as 400-500 people. The title shouldn't be taken lightly. Yes, it's kitschy. Yes, it alludes to the show's content, but there might not be a better way to explain its essence. Audiences, whether during the live performance or watching it on television, are introduced to historical figures and their take on the biggest moments in their lives, and on today's world.
The show has featured Amelia Earhart, Langston Hughes, Harry S. Truman, Walt Disney, Jesse James, William Allen White. And, in each performance, the host asking questions is Kemper.
Missouri-born outlaw Jesse James, portrayed by actor-director Aaron Worley, discusses his notorious past with Crosby Kemper III, director of the Kansas City Public Library. James is credited with robbing at least a dozen banks and became a dime store novel hero.
Doug Mishler, who will portray Thomas Hart Benton in a performance tomorrow night, said that living history requires an unusual skill set. Neither he nor Kemper memorize a script. Most actors in the series will review a few possible questions with Kemper, but the real show involves answering unexpected questions from him and the audience. Actors do it seamlessly, drawing upon what they’ve read or seen in still photographs and other footage, if it exists, and by taking their best guess at the emotions of the person – not character – they’re portraying.
“It’s definitely live and you don’t know what’s coming at you, so it’s like a reality spin on acting,” Mishler says. “Some people used to describe Chautauqua as different from acting, and I don’t think that’s true. It’s inherently inaccurate. Academics did that because actors by definition would read a script and that’s all they would know. To do Chautauqua, you have to become the character and answer questions, be able to know almost everything.”
How a discussion between a historical character and an interviewer comes to be a television show is a complicated story in itself. Kemper says that the show owes its existence to the library’s director of public affairs, Henry Fortunato. During a stint with the University of Kansas in 2004, the Bleeding Kansas Chautauqua visited Lawrence and fascinated Fortunato in the way they brought history to life. He brought the idea for Meet the Past along with him to Kansa City, in a slightly varying form: the discussion would feature a Chatauqua-author talk hybrid and Kemper would ask the questions.
From there, like many entertainment ventures, what happened next was fortunate. During the first performance, KCPT’s vice president of education, Michael Zeller, was in attendance. There was no doubt that Kemper and Bill Worley worked well together on stage, and soon the cameras were brought in. The initial airing in 2008 was nominated for a regional Emmy.
Kemper sometimes meets the historical figures on stage during the performance along with the audience. During his interview with Henry Block, he tried to tie his experience as a pilot in World War II to his experience in founding tax preparation giant H&R Bloch.
“There was a quote from a previous interview in which he said the experience (at war) allowed him to take the kind a risk he might not have otherwise taken,” Kemper says. “I said, ‘I understand that this might have had something to do with your ability to start H&R Bloch and your ability to take risk.’ I thought I knew the answer to that question, which is part of being a successful interviewer, right? And, Henry said, ‘No, I don’t think it had anything to do with it.’ That was my first question. I stood up and said thank you very much, the interview is over.”
For more information about Meet the Past, visit www.kcpt.org.
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