Playcrafters Barn Theatre, 4950 35th Ave., Moline, presents the Pulitzer-winning “The Piano Lesson” this weekend. The play, by August Wilson (1945-2005) is set in the 1930s of The Great Depression. Its discordant, clashing notes resolve in peaceful harmony that carry forceful lessons for our fractious times today. Directed by Kermit Thomas of Moline, part of Wilson’s epic “American Century Cycle,” in “The Piano Lesson,” it’s 1936, and Boy Willie arrives in Pittsburgh from the South in a battered truck loaded with watermelons to sell. He has an opportunity to buy some land down... Read More

Artists in Conversation is a weekly column running Wednesdays on QuadCities.com. It features a conversation with a local creator or creators going into their artistic process, projects and more. Get to know your local arts scene and local creators better on QuadCities.com with Artists In Conversation! If you’re a local creator and would like to be featured, please email us at Sean@QuadCities.com or Tristan@QuadCities.com! Kermit Thomas is a first time director at the helm of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, which opens  this weekend... Read More

If you’ve ever met Don Faust you’d know he’s one of the nicest, funniest and most positive blokes on this planet. So it comes with some shock and awe that this not-quite-but-sort-of-autobiographical play dives into a not-so-cheery part of his life that under some circumstances would disavow a gleeful demeanor. Leave it to Faust to rise way, way above a troubled and rather tortured past to treat others the exact opposite. I think that’s why the play hit me the way it did. It was personal. On a few levels. I have known Don for … who knows … maybe close to 20 years now and though... Read More

The new Bettendorf-based Double Threat Studios will debut its first production, “James and the Giant Peach Jr,” this weekend in three performances at Playcrafters Barn Theatre, 4950 35th Ave., Moline. “We have been lucky enough to be able to work with several local theaters to help support through the pandemic,” Double Threat co-owner Megan Warren said this week. The cast features 13 3rd-8th graders performing the full production – and students come from Davenport, Bettendorf, Moline, and Rock Island. The show is based on Roald Dahl’s book of the same name featuring essentially... Read More

Playcrafters Barn Theatre, 4950 35th Ave., Moline, will hold auditions April 17-18 at the Barn Theatre for “Princeton’s Rage,” an original work by local playwright Don Faust, Davenport. The cast calls for three men (ages 30s-50s) and one woman (20s). In the play, Princeton Yale left his hometown of Chicago over 30 years ago, he turned his back on an abusive past at the hands of his high school classmates and never looked back. But through a series of happenstances, Princeton’s past comes to pay him a visit, in the form of one of his former tormentors, Reece “Rage” Johnson,... Read More

Playcrafters Barn Theatre is still searching for its happy ending. The 107-year-old former dairy barn (4950 35th Ave., Moline), used as a theater since 1960, has been shuttered for a year now due to Covid-19. Plans for a 2021 reopening were thrown out of whack with a Valentine’s Day disaster, as pipes froze and a valve ruptured during February’s spell of bitterly cold temperatures, flooding the entire first floor of the building and causing about $35,000 in property damage. “My wife and I were going out to late lunch, and I got a text from a board member,” Playcrafters board president Bruce... Read More

Playcrafters Barn Theater has announced they’ll be cancelling the rest of their 2020 season due to covid-19 complications and concerns. The Moline theater released the following statement on their website today: We at Playcrafters Barn Theatre must sadly announce that we are officially postponing the remainder of our 2020 season. The health and safety of our volunteers and patrons must always come first, and after much deliberation, we have concluded that it will not be possible for us to safely rehearse and perform the rest of this season’s shows while the coronavirus pandemic continues... Read More

During this unprecedented, scary time of Covid-19, it seems apropos that the first indoor live theater in the Quad-Cities since the shutdown will be the spooky ghost story, “The Turn of the Screw,” next month at Moline’s Black Box Theatre. The 60-seat theater (1623 5th Ave.) will open at half capacity on July 16 and close the 19th. “It is a short run,” said director Lora Adams, “but the set was almost completed and the actors’ schedules have changed since March, so we are only able to do the four-day weekend.” Actor Matt Walsh and Kayla Jo Pulliam will bring the creepy tale to life... Read More

Joining Music Guild, Countryside, Genesius Guild and a number of others, Playcrafters Barn Theatre in Moline has canceled their summer shows due to concerns over coronavirus. The pandemic has now nearly wiped clean the local theater slate for the summer, with only Moline’s Black Box Theater not having announced cancellations, and Circa ’21 holding out any hope of salvaging shows, hoping to still be able to stage “Saturday Night Fever” at some point. Playcrafters announced the following on their Facebook page today: Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and for the safety... Read More

T.S. Eliot had it all wrong. In “The Waste Land,” the poet wrote “April is the cruelest month.” Well, five days before we can kick it into the dustbin of history, it’s safe to say that dishonor now belongs to March. At least March 2020, which has seen one bone-crushing loss after another for many around the world, me especially. Just one of the latest is from our beloved Quad-Cities theater community – of which I’ve been honored to share as longtime arts reporter for the Dispatch/Argus (and later Quad City Times), as well as piano accompanist and occasional stage performer. The singular... Read More