Water for Elephants - The Musical

Water for Elephants - The Musical at Muriel Kauffman Theatre - Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

A young man boards a moving train after everything in his life collapses. He doesn't know where it's going—only that staying put means drowning in grief. The train belongs to a traveling circus, and inside its world of performers and animals, he finds work, wonder and a woman who might give him a reason to stay. Water for Elephants - The Musical brings Sara Gruen's Depression-era love story to the Muriel Kauffman Theatre, where the desperation of jumping onto that train becomes the beginning of an unexpected romance.

The show unfolds through the eyes of an older man remembering his youth. As he recalls that reckless leap and the circus that became his home, the stakes sharpen: a fragile new life built among strangers, a connection that could heal him or complicate everything and the question of whether he belongs to this strange, dangerous world. Rick Elice's book and music and lyrics by PigPen Theatre Co. shape the story around memory and longing.

Jessica Stone's staging integrates circus performance into the narrative itself, with choreography by Jesse Robb and circus design by Shana Carroll. Puppetry from Ray Wetmore, JR Goodman and Camille Labarre enriches the theatrical storytelling, making the romance and spectacle inseparable.

Get tickets for Water for Elephants in Kansas City and follow one man’s journey from loss to love.