Artspeak Radio with The National Toy & Miniature Museum, Charlotte St., and Kansas City Society for Contemporary Photography

Artspeak Radio, Wednesday, 9am -10am CST, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio, streaming live audio www.kkfi.org

Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd talks with Lane Czaplinski Interim Director Charlotte Street, Angie Jennings Kansas City Society for Contemporary Photography, and Dr. Madeline Rislow The National Toy & Miniature Museum

LANE CZAPLINSKI- Charlotte Street has engaged Lane Czaplinski to be its Interim Executive Director as it transitions from the formative leadership of outgoing director Amy Kligman over the last nine years. Czaplinski will work with the board of directors to provide artistic, operational, and financial support functions for Charlotte Street in a role that includes bolstering fundraising, strategic planning evaluation, organizational visioning, and helping draft the next phase of leadership.
“I love organizations like Charlotte Street that champion local artists as well as unique voices from other parts of the world,” said Czaplinski. “It shows how an organization can invest in its local scene while fostering creative exchange at the same time.”
“As a board, we are grateful for the opportunity to engage Lane in this interim director position,” said Charlotte Street Board President José Faus. “We look forward to working together to strengthen and expand the inclusive role that Amy fostered in her tenure at Charlotte Street. Lane’s administrative experience and skills, his advocacy and engagement in the performing arts, and his deep connections to the area will serve the organization well.”
Czaplinski grew up in Kansas City, Kansas and graduated from the University of Kansas where he was the co-captain of the 1991-92 men’s basketball team under coach Roy Williams. A few years later, he began his arts administration career at the Lied Center in Lawrence, apprenticing under the nationally recognized leadership of former director Jacqueline Z. Davis. Czaplinski notes the following projects as highlights during his five-year stint: Still/Here by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance, Jazz Train by choreographer Donald Byrd, Le Belle et Le Bette by composer Philip Glass and choreographer Susan Marshall, and The Nova Convention: Revisited, which was a performance tribute to William Burroughs featuring Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, Blondie, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Ed Sanders, John Giorgio and Mr. Burroughs himself.
“I’m excited by the prospect of using the knowledge and experience I’ve acquired over the last 30 years as a creative producer to the benefit of an awesome organization in my hometown like Charlotte Street,” said Czaplinski.
Primarily focused on working with the performing arts, Czaplinski’s career includes stops at the prestigious Brooklyn Academy of Music (1999-2002); On the Boards in Seattle (2002-2017), which was called “one of America’s best theaters for contemporary performance” by the New York Times during his tenure; and most recently at the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University (2017-2023).
Czaplinski cites the following as primary career accomplishments: realizing boundary-pushing programming by artists from around the world; producing dozens of new projects with numerous emerging and established artists; achieving success in all aspects of arts administration, including fundraising, fiscal management and strategic planning; and experimenting with initiatives to make organizations more inclusive, accessible and dynamic. For example, in 2004, Czaplinski started an online platform for contemporary performance called OntheBoards.tv that at one point boasted over 150 university subscribers globally, who integrated the specially produced performance videos on the site into their teaching.
In 2024, Czaplinski established C-ZAP MOVING CO. to offer consulting services for performing artists and organizations, including planning, programming and producing, and executive support. More information can be found at c-zap.com
Selected Press
● “What Lane Czaplinski Brought to On the Boards” – The Stranger
● “There’s nothing bland about Studio Suppers at OtB” – The Seattle Times
● “Recording Staged Works for All the World to See” – The New York Times
● “In a Former Life, This Artistic Director Climbed the Ranks of a Basketball Powerhouse” – KNKX Public Radio
For interview requests, contact Amanda Middaugh, Development + Marketing Director, at [email protected] or 816-994-7734.
ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET
Charlotte Street centers Kansas City’s most forward-thinking visual artists, writers, and performers—acting as the primary incubator, provocateur, and connector for the region’s contemporary arts community, and its leading advocate on the national stage. Since 1997, Charlotte Street has distributed over $2.5 million in awards and grants to artists and their innovative projects, and connected individual artists to each other and to the greater Kansas City community. For more information about Charlotte Street, its awards, programs, and initiatives, visit www.charlottestreet.org.

ANGIE JENNINGS KCSCP-This year we will celebrate 10 Years of Kansas City Society for Contemporary Photography
A few events we have planned and are still in the planning stages. Kansas City Society for Contemporary Photography will be holding and planning different events for our 10th anniversary in various locations.

Currently we have our Portrait of a City on view in the Box Gallery, 1000 Walnut, the Commerce Bank building, closes February 21st. Portrait of a City was our first collaboration with the Nelson Atkins photography department. It was inspired by their exhibition of Evelyn Hofer and was attended by 49 photographers. We created a catalog of 98 images along with this exhibition. We are also working with other city partners to display our Portrait of a City project in other locations. Something to stay tuned for.

We are working on another collaboration with the Nelson Atkins Photography Dept. title Postcards from the Middle. This project will be inspired by the current exhibition, Strange and Familiar Places. Storytelling through photography to convey a sense of place, however this project will have a writing component as well. It will be open to the 1st 30 photographers who sign up. Reserve your spot now on the Nelson Atkins site, our website, and social media. This will fill up quickly. The Project begins on March 6th with a tour of the exhibition with April Watson, and assignment discussion by Angie
Jennings. You can go to the Nelson-Atkins exhibition page for Strange and Familiar places or click on the Postcards from the Middle on KCSCP.org.

Winter Salon in Saffron – a group exhibition in partnership with Cerbera gallery that features not only photography but painting, sculpture, printmaking, and other mediums. This closes soon.

We will be inviting all past board members to submit work for our June 10th anniversary exhibition that will feature their work since serving on the board. It will be on view in Cerbera Gallery, 2011 Baltimore. Dates will be posted on our website and social media.

Our 10th annual juried exhibition, Current Works 2025, will be on display in the Englewood Arts Center. Our juror is Mike Sinclair.. We are thrilled to have him add to our long roster of prominent people in the photographic arts community. His photographs are in several public and private collections including The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Charlotte Street Award. Sinclair is represented by Haw Contemporary. This exhibition opens October 17, 2025 and closes December 20, 2025. We will hold a juror’s talk as well as artists’ talk within the duration of the exhibition. Dates for those talks are yet to be determined.
Kansas City Society for Contemporary Photography
[email protected]
https://www.kcscp.org/
https://linktr.ee/KCSCP
FB: @kansascityscp
IG: @kcscp
https://www.kcscp.org/
https://www.kcscp.org/postcards-from-the-middle and/or https://nelson-atkins.org/…/strange-and-familiar-places/
https://www.kcscp.org/portrait-of-a-city
https://www.kcscp.org/current-works

DR. MADELINE RISLOW, Curator/ Sr. Manager of Learning and Engagement ,The National Museum of Toys & Miniature
June 29, 2024 – March 3, 2025
Portraits of Childhood: Black Dolls from the Collection of Deborah Neff explores themes of race, gender, and identity through 135 handmade Black dolls dating from around 1850 to 1940 as well as almost 60 period photographs and paintings depicting dolls posed alongside both children and adults. A selection of more recent Black dolls from the Museum’s collection provides additional perspectives on the exhibition’s themes to consider. Educators, students, and community members are invited to respond to the exhibition thoughtfully and critically through visiting both independently and in organized groups, participating in workshops and facilitated conversations, and attending public lectures.
The Museum was established in 1982 as the Toy and Miniature Museum of Kansas City, featuring the collections of Mary Harris Francis and Barbara Hall Marshall. Operating in the historic Tureman Mansion on the corner of 52nd and Oak on the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus, the 7,500-square-foot museum had two full-time staff members.
Over the next 30 years with expansions in 1989 and 2004, the Museum grew to 33,000 square feet. During the same period, the collection increased to over 72,000 objects. In 2012, the Museum embarked on its first public capital campaign to raise $10.2 million to support building and exhibit improvements. The campaign raised $10.73 million, and the Museum began a 19-month renovation in 2014.
The Museum reopened as The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures on August 1, 2015, with the world’s largest fine-scale miniature collection and one of the nation’s largest historic toy collections on public display. The Museum’s collection currently numbers more than 93,000 objects – and counting.
Today, the Museum is a place where art meets history and every visitor leaves feeling a little younger.
5235 Oak St. Kansas City, MO 64112 Phone (816) 235-8000 Email [email protected]

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