Girl power takes center stage as Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse continues its 49th season with the foot-stomping good time “Honky Tonk Angels,” running Friday through April 25. The feel-good country-music revue was hailed by Rochester Media as “heaven on earth.” “Honky Tonk Angels” is a celebration of female country music stars, telling the story of […]
Seeing the tremendously intense, uncomfortable, brutal and cathartic production of “God of Carnage” made me realize again how much I’ve missed the now-defunct QC Theatre Workshop in Davenport. The original 2009 Broadway version of Yasmina Reza’s bitter, black comedy — with the star-studded cast Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden – won […]
The 2026 season at Playcrafters Barn Theatre (4950 35th Ave., Moline) kicks off this weekend and next with the bitter, black comedy “God of Carnage” by Yasmina Reza, hailed by Variety as “elegant, acerbic, and entertainingly fueled on pure bile.” When a playground fight between two boys leaves one injured, their parents agree to meet […]
The Cambridge Academic Foundation invites the community to an evening of suspense, laughter, and intrigue at “Murder at the Mall II: The Class Reunion,” a murder mystery comedy written by Tom Akers. The event will take place Saturday, Feb. 28th at Midland Golf Club in Kewanee, with doors opening at 5:30 p.m. and the show […]
I wanted very much to enjoy “word play,” a world premiere from the incredibly prolific playwright, Alex Richardson, and his Barely There Theatre. Unfortunately, I really didn’t, I’m sorry. Despite 11 years of revisions, from when Richardson first tackled his first of many plays, “word play” still feels unfinished, a random collection of pretty brief […]
February has been kind of a busy month for Alex Richardson. The prolific playwright is back with his Barely There Theatre to present another world premiere (his second in less than a month) at the Black Box Theatre in downtown Moline. “word play” is a new play from Richardson, and first-time director Emma Wahlmann, featuring […]
You are pretty much guaranteed of a good time with the winning new production of “9 to 5: The Musical,” at Spotlight Theatre, 1800 7th Ave., Moline. Directed by Becca Casad and starring Katie Griswold in the role immortalized by Dolly Parton in the 1980 film of the same name, we are in very capable […]
Katie Griswold and Becca Casad have seen their theatrical careers gleefully intertwine since their days at Rock Island’s Augustana College, which included performing together in the colorful, exuberant “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” on campus in 2019. They have succeeded in QC theater by really trying, including an Augie reunion at Black […]
It was extremely gratifying to see a nearly sold-out crowd Saturday, Jan. 31 in the 60-seat Black Box Theatre in downtown Moline for an exciting event – the world premiere of “What Might Have Been,” a trio of brand-new, emotional, engrossing one-act plays by prolific local playwright Alexander Richardson. These heart-wrenching stories explore the roads […]
It’s hard not to like “Lucky Stiff,” the fun, fizzy musical farce now playing at Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse, Rock Island, in its Quad Cities premiere. In dark, depressing, heavy times like this (in an Arctic winter), this 1988 show by acclaimed Broadway veterans Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (“Ragtime,” “Anastasia,” “Once on This Island” […]
