The average car is built from roughly 30,000 parts, which all have to fit and work together, to allow you to drive after turning your ignition key. Putting together a musical is similarly complex, to ensure a smooth ride and operation, though it’s both less and more complicated. The phenomenally powerful, emotional and urgent new […]
Circa ’21 and Richmond Hill Players, despite being very different venues with very different shows (a large dinner theater presenting mainly musicals and a small barn theater in the round offering primarily straight plays), share some key commonalities. The Rock Island and Geneseo houses both seem to pride themselves on staging comforting, feel-good stories, and […]
Watching the spectacular, mesmerizing new production of “The Secret Garden” Friday night at Moline’s Spotlight Theatre made me cry. Not only because of the tremendously powerful performances in this story of loss, grief and death in the haunting, breathtakingly beautiful musical — which premiered in 1991 and is based on the classic 1911 book of […]
I have long felt a kinship to the landmark, iconic musical “Cabaret,” for many reasons – my family heritage is Jewish; its amazing composer John Kander graduated from the same college I did (Oberlin, albeit 35 years earlier); I’ve been a huge fan of much of the melodic, heartfelt score (including the classics “Wilkommen,” “Mein […]
“It was a dark and dreary night…” So begins the impeccable, affectionate film noir spoof “The Adventures of Sam Steele” – a new radio play by Jeff Adamson – that is premiering at The Black Box Theatre (1623 5th Ave., Moline), running through April 4. Set in 1947, after the war, Sam Steele, P.I. is on the […]
Because of scheduling conflicts, I was relatively late to see the latest show at Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse, in its 49th season, but the utterly delightful, foot-stomping good time “Honky Tonk Angels” was worth the wait. The revue of 30 classic country songs (including reprises and one appropriate REO Speedwagon hit) has a paper-thin plot, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
