Roll over, Steve Allen: KCPT pilot brings historical figures to life

Maybe if I weren't married to someone who does this very thing I'm about to describe, I'd have a hard time buying it, too, but here's the concept: An historical figure answers questions posed by a present-day interviewer as well as members of a studio audience, and it is NOT the most hokey thing you have ever seen. In fact, after a few minutes you're kind of feeling transported back in time yourself.

Kansas City Public Television is intrigued enough by the idea that it is partnering with the Kansas City Public Library on a pilot taping of the concept, working title "Meet the Past," this Thursday at the Central Library downtown. Seats are free and I'd strongly suggest you get one or two.

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Actually, with all the first-rate literary talent that now passes through the public library and its beautiful new showcase facility — the Helzberg Auditorium, a lovely wood-and-glass fishbowl on the fifth floor of this renovated bank building — I thought the library's programs should be offered to Book TV. I said as much to Crosby Kemper III, the library's executive director, this summer. And that's when he offered that they were, in fact, starting to videotape author appearances and post them to their website.

I didn't think of KCPT at the time, because frankly, most author talks are best left on a non-Nielsen-measured cable channel. Nor did I imagine that the kernel of a local public TV series would be this video: Kemper interviewing "Tom Pendergast" — actually, UMKC history prof Bill Worley as the old Kansas City boss — in October before nearly 300 people crowded into Kirk Hall, on the first floor of the downtown library.

But watching it, I thought, hey, why not? What differentiates this format from those old "Meeting of Minds" specials Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows used to do is that this one's unscripted. Worley's not an actor or a re-enactor, he's a scholar who has learned how to speak as his subject with a fair degree of authenticity. I've seen it work on many occasions before a live audience; the real question is, how will it play on TV?

The proposal for "Meet the Past: Kansas City Lives" will be a shorter, tighter and (presumably) brighter version of the Pendergast program and will be taped on Thursday. If KCPT likes it and can raise the money — which should be doable given the modest production costs and Kemper's fundraising prowess — then expect more such free tapings with other colorful Kansas City characters from years gone by.