This Kansas City theater festival is putting local Black playwrights in center stage

The Crescendo Award festival started to provide an inclusive space to amplify the work of underrepresented local playwrights. It helps showcase the diversity in Kansas City’s theater scene, said one honoree.
Olivia Hill never thought she’d get the opportunity to stage one of her plays for a hometown audience.

“I wanted to go to art school, but I was kind of just laughed at, like, ‘You're not going to get in there,’” said the award-winning Black playwright, remembering her days as an aspiring writer in the 1980s. “So I sort of gave up on that entire idea.”

Instead, at the age of 22, Hill left Kansas City for Alaska. In the years since, she’s become an accomplished visual artist and author.