How The Unicorn's Cynthia Levin Brought East-Coast Activism To The Kansas City Stage

Forty years is a long time to spend in one place, doing one thing. Especially when the goal is to ruffle feathers.

But that's what the Unicorn Theatre's producing artistic director Cynthia Levin has done, turning an anti-establishment theater into an established venue.

And this year, she's earned recognition for that work in the form of a Kathryn V. Lamkey award from the Actors' Equity Association, the union for professional actors and stage managers. This particular award, the "Kathy" as they call it, is given to people and organizations who consistently provide opportunities for underrepresented members of the union living and working in the Midwest.

That knack for representing the underrepresented has been part of her work at the Unicorn from the beginning.

"We got this sort of reputation of, 'Oh yeah, that's the theater that does all the plays about women. That's the place where the play's about African Americans and the naked ones and the gay — that's because nobody else was doing any of it," Levin says. "Now I think there's a little bit more of spreading that around, but there sure wasn't in the '80s and '90s.