Due to the abridged past summer season, there’s a good chance you may have missed the small, stellar offerings of Mississippi Bend Players, the professional regional theater at Augustana College, Rock Island. Well, you are in luck, as two of the three shows in the 2021 season (which only ran for one weekend apiece) will have virtual encores, with online screenings of “Mary and Ethel: How I Learned to Sing” and “No Child…” “Mary and Ethel: How I Learned to Sing” will stream through Aug. 8. Conceived and performed by Shelly Cooper with musical arrangements by Mason Moss, the show... Read More

Sydney Chatman and Jalyn Greene know what it’s like to teach theater to minority, inner-city students. So the African-American women are a natural pair to direct and act, respectively, the one-woman show “No Child…,” which is the last Mississippi Bend Players production this summer. It runs through Sunday at Augustana College’s Brunner Theatre Center, 3750 7th Ave., Rock Island. “No Child…” (written and premiered in 2006 by Nilaja Sun) follows the story of Miss Sun, a visiting teacher who uses theatre as a means of connecting with students in the New York City public school system.... Read More

QuadCities.com apologizes for the previous version of this review which had a few glitches in it due to a technical error in translating the text between systems. The error has been fixed and here is the review in its entirety. Thank you. Mississippi Bend has managed to go three-for-three this season with stellar productions of Red and Mary and Ethel: How I Learned to Sing preceding the incredible No Child…, which debuted this weekend. It’s hard to put into words what Jalyn Greene accomplishes in Mississippi Bend’s latest triumph, No Child… In the span of 65 minutes, Greene successfully... Read More