Latest Circa ’21 Show, ‘Rock Of Ages,’ Ready To Rock Out In Rock Island
Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse, Rock Island, is putting the “rock” in Rock Town with its new production, “Rock of Ages.”
The Tony Award-nominated Broadway smash jukebox musical, now running through Nov. 7, was first performed locally in 2017 at Moline’s Black Box Theatre, and has been hailed by NY1 as “an irresistible, offbeat trip of a show that hits all the right notes.”
As “Rock of Ages” begins, it’s the tail end of the big, bad ’80s in Hollywood, and the party has been raging hard. Aqua Net, Lycra, lace and liquor flow freely at one of the Sunset Strip’s last legendary venues, a place where rock icon Stacee Jaxx takes the stage and groupies line up to turn their fantasies into reality, according to a Circa release.
Amid the madness, aspiring musician and resident janitor Drew longs to take the stage as the next big thing and also longs for Sherrie, a starry-eyed small-town girl fresh off the bus from Kansas. But the rock-and-roll fairytale looks about to end after German developers sweep into town with plans to turn the fabled strip into just another capitalist strip mall. Can Drew, Sherrie and the gang save the strip before it’s too late?
Including the music of such iconic bands as Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi and Whitesnake, the show delivers a cornucopia of classics from the ’80s, with the musical’s characters belting out such unforgettable hits as Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian,” Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is,” REO Speedwagon’s “Keep on Loving You” and the Twisted Sister anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” The original 2009 Broadway production of “Rock of Ages” ran for 2,328 performances and is among the longest-running shows in Broadway history.
Directing and choreographing Circa ’21’s season-ending production is frequent director/choreographer Ashley Becher, whose recent productions for the Rock Island dinner theater have included “Chicago,” “The Addams Family” and this past winter’s Quad Cities debut of “Lucky Stiff.” Area favorite Ron May serves as music director, with romantic hopefuls Drew and Sherrie portrayed by Tate Milton and Avery Gallagher.
Circa ’21 Bootlegger and busy local performer Chase Austin (Quad City Music Guild’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” and the Spotlight Theatre’s “The Wedding Singer”) plays rock legend Stacee Jaxx, while a baker’s-dozen of additional talents complete the ensemble: Bobby Becher; Jordan Bee; Kyle DeFauw; Owen Espinosa; Hanna Marie Felver; Kelsey Sylvia Flowers; Bear Manescalchi; Nicolette Mayer; Chandler James; Elly Rebeka; Tristan Layne Tapscott; Aĭssatou Thiam and Tariq Woods.
From Clinton to Circa
Avery Gallagher (Sherrie), 24, is thrilled to make her Circa ’21 debut, returning to the role for the second time, since she played it in summer 2024 at Clinton Area Showboat Theatre.
A Philadelphia-based actor, Avery recently toured throughout Europe as a vocalist with AIDA Cruises (for the first five months of the year). Favorite credits include Beauty and the Beast (Belle), Spring Awakening (Wendla), Heathers (Veronica), Great Comet (Sonya), and Kinky Boots (Nicola). Avery holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from Rider University in New Jersey (about 40 miles northeast of Philadelphia).
Performing in Clinton was Gallagher’s first experience in the Midwest.
“I get to see this area of the country for the first time, kind of get to experience that Midwestern friendliness, which is so sweet,” she said Thursday, Sept. 17. “And also unfortunately experienced some mayflies, which we don’t have on the East Coast.”
Coming back to “Rock of Ages” again, “t’s very different approaching a show freshly coming out of a BFA program. You’re new, you’re a baby to the world, versus working professionally for two years and then coming back and visiting the show as a different person,” Gallagher said. “It’s a huge advantage, especially because there’s so much material, like so much music, and the dialogue is interwoven within the music, so understanding how that flows, so having that knowledge, especially when we put up the show in eight days — already having that knowledge really helps.”
She was used to Circa’s condensed rehearsal process, since on her cruise line, the performers learned six shows over six weeks (90 minutes each).
“So you pretty much had like seven days to learn each of the shows. Yeah, I’m used to a fast process,” Gallagher said. “One of the shows was entirely in Italian, so it was really hard to memorize everything.”
She’s had a lovely experience at Circa so far.
“The team is so on top of everything. It’s just been really awesome,” Gallagher said. “I love Ashley as a director because she has a plan. She has everything perfectly scheduled out, and, like, she has a vision, and she knows how to execute it.”
From Bootlegger to main stage
Austin, a 28-year-old Moline High alum, has been a Circa Bootlegger for two years, and loves his first mainstage experience in the wild, no-holds-barred role.
“It’s been a huge satisfaction. It’s been a lot of pressure on my wee little brain, but I feel like I’ve surprised myself quite a bit,” he said. “And the process has been amazing. People have been super supportive. I have surprised myself. I didn’t think I was able to put on a show in eight days, and here I am doing it.”
He’s also stoked to be making his Circa ‘21 debut as Stacee. Austin was last seen as Roy Scheider in The Shark is Broken (Black Box Theatre). Some of his past credits include: Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror, Robbie Hart in The Wedding Singer, Mark in RENT and Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar.
As a seven-time veteran performing in The Speakeasy’s “Rocky Horror Show,” Austin compares his “Rock of Ages” role to the preening transvestite Frank-N-Furter he’s played twice (including last year) next door.
“It’s kind of easy to step into this because Stacee is that big rock star artist,” he said, noting his favorite number is “Wanted Dead or Alive.” “I think Stacee is ultimately worse.”
“ ‘Rock of Ages’ has very archetypal characters, which is where they begin from,” Becher said of Sherrie, the innocent, wide-eyed ingenue, and Stacee, the hard-edged, narcissistic rocker. “So it’s easy for the audience to latch on to, like, okay, we’re diving into this crazy world, and I see where these stories fit. The show follows the classic musical theater structure, this classic story structure, and it even references that in the show very frequently. It’s a very self-referential, tongue-in-cheek show. It knows exactly what it is, and it does it, and it does it well.”
She’s been impressed with Gallagher and Austin taking complete control of their characters.
“They had a handle on those characters as broad strokes, but they also brought a more wholly developed view to the characters as well,” Becher said. “So they had nuance. They weren’t just that. Like, we could see that very clearly, but they connected to the character and the heart of the character as well, which is what you need for people to care about the show. If it’s just that, like, big broad strokes, then you’re laughing about it, but you don’t invest yourself in the story as much. It’s important to have both things.”
Gallagher said Stacee (played by Tom Cruise in the 2012 film version) is kind of a villain in the story. “So we do see some moments of his humanity or how like the rockstar status might be weighing on him, but he really helps to move along Sherrie’s story and her plot,” she said.
Variety of Circa directing
Director/choreographer Ashley Becher is helming her ninth Circa production, and this past season also directed “White Christmas” and “Lucky Stiff.”
“Which has been so fun because they’re three very different shows, and that’s creatively very fulfilling,” she said. While she was only born in 1984, Becher is a big fan of the “Rock of Ages” soundtrack, and its 17 megahits.
“I’d never worked on ‘Rock of Ages’ before, and I’ve never seen it live either. So it was like a fresh— I could come to the material fresh and new and just take it all in,” Becher said. “I was surprised how many songs I knew. I mean, I was born in ’84, and a lot of the songs in it are the hits, you know? It’s like everyone’s gonna recognize them even if they aren’t a child of the ’80s. But I was like, oh yeah, I know that song. Oh, I know this song too. I was like, I know all these ones.”
“I think that people that know the music and want to come for the music are definitely going to enjoy themselves because it’s full of music and fun,” the director said. “We wanted it to feel really nostalgic. We wanted it to feel like you were connecting back to the idealized version of the ’80s. I think people will enjoy it if they don’t know the music or they’re not a fan of the music because it’s a fun story that they can connect to.”
There’s a narrator who speaks to the audience, played by Bear Manescalchi, who was Frankie Valli in Circa’s “Jersey Boys” in 2024.
“That’s such a fun character that will really take the audience on the journey and make them feel right at home,” Becher said.
Gallagher said her favorite song in the show is one she’s not in – the opening, “Nothin’ But a Good Time.”
“I love the opening and I’m so sad I’m not in the opening. My character doesn’t come in until like a little bit after,” she said. “It’s so high energy. The dancing is just incredible, and it really is setting the scene of that like ’80s bar scene in Los Angeles. So we see all these crazy characters and really get a feel for the show in the opening.”
One she loves that she does sing is the date scene in the car, with Drew and Sherrie, like a classic ‘80s movie, with Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl Like You.” “That song is so iconic and it’s a really cute scene,” Gallagher said.
Austin loves flaunting his big rock-star energy (which he’s extended to several Circa promo videos around town), and Gallagher relates to Sherrie’s arc of wanting to make it as an actress.
“I mean, 10,000%. I see so much of myself in her,” she said. “I see that young, fresh, bright-eyed person inside me really hoping to have a career. And luckily I’ve been pretty successful so far. But just like Sherrie, you have your ups and your downs, and you meet so many different people along the way. And I think that’s part of the life experience.”
“It’s so rewarding to get to come back and do it again,” Gallagher added. “I just love her as a character. Like, I was so over the moon. I was like, oh my gosh, I get to do the show again, right? I just love the music and getting to fulfill the character’s story and to bring joy to people in the theater and make them relive like their experiences. And I think the story has a really great message where it’s like everybody has hopes and dreams. And I think similar to the characters, I’m realizing that, sometimes my dreams might be different coming into a certain event or circumstances than they are coming out.”
“Rock of Ages” will be presented at Circa ’21 (1828 3rd Ave., Rock Island) through Nov. 7, with performances on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 5:30 p.m. and Wednesday. matinées at 1:15 p.m. Pre-show entertainment featuring the theatre’s waitstaff the Bootleggers also will precede all performances. Ticket prices are $70 for the Friday-Sunday productions and $63 for the Wednesday matinee and evening shows.
There will be an added show-only performance, on Thursday, October 8th, where the bar will be open and popcorn for sale. Becher added the new Bootleggers pre-show will feature rock versions of songs in the upcoming 50th Circa season, including “It’s a Hard-Rock Life” from “Annie.”
“They’re doing rock variations of the next season, which is fun,” she said. “The show takes place— the bar in the show is the Bourbon Room. And the Bourbon Room staff on stage wears T-shirts of that, and then the Bootleggers and bussers are wearing them as well. And then we have them available for sale too in case people want to take a little piece of the show home with them.”
Reservations are available through the Circa ’21 ticket office, or by calling 309-786-7733 ext. 2. Online reservations also may be made at the theater’s website circa21.com.
