Come check out the award winning La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas before the show and star Shelley Cooper head to an Off Broadway engagement in New York City! When: Sept 25 @ 2:00 pm Where: The Village Theatre Tickets are $15 cash at the door and all students get in FREE with ID! La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas is a one-woman show inspired by the life and work of the Dramatic 20th Century Opera Singer Maria Callas. The audience eavesdrops on La Divina’s interview with a nonexistant Mr. Wallace and are taken on a journey through trauma, allowed glimpses of an extremely... Read More

The Augustana College Department of Theatre presents “The Threepenny Opera,” May 5-8, 2022. Set in the impoverished back alleys of Victorian London, “The Threepenny Opera” follows underworld antihero Mack the Knife as he tries to woo Polly Peachum and elude authorities. Created in 1928 Berlin to speak out against capitalist corruption, this musical bluntly addresses issues that remain relevant today. Through epic theatre, theatrical movement, and progressive music, Hauptmann, Weill, and Brecht’s work opens up difficult conversations about greed, oppression, and accountability within our... Read More

The Augustana College Department of Theatre presents “The Threepenny Opera,” May 5-8, 2022. Set in the impoverished back alleys of Victorian London, “The Threepenny Opera” follows underworld antihero Mack the Knife as he tries to woo Polly Peachum and elude authorities. Created in 1928 Berlin to speak out against capitalist corruption, this musical bluntly addresses issues that remain relevant today. Through epic theatre, theatrical movement, and progressive music, Hauptmann, Weill, and Brecht’s work opens up difficult conversations about greed, oppression, and accountability within our... Read More

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 one of the three shows in the 2021 season (which only ran for one weekend apiece) will have a virtual encore, “Mary and Ethel: How I Learned to Sing.” “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 pays homage to two of the great muses... Read More

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

You know when they say film versions of stage plays often “open them up” with exterior settings or other visual changes that are not possible or feasible in a theater? Well, two already remarkable stage shows at this month’s Mississippi Bend Players – the top-notch professional summer stock at Augustana College – have benefitted from that approach, both without leaving an indoor theater. Just a week after its first 2021 production, “Red” (which premiered in 2012 at QC Theatre Workshop), MBP again transformed the Brunner Theatre Center into a spacious, sophisticated cabaret with Shelley... Read More

Shelley Cooper came full circle last week at the prestigious Orlando Fringe Festival in Florida, and came home Tuesday with an unexpected award. The multi-talented, 35-year-old Augustana assistant professor of theatre arts earned the Fringe Critic’s Choice for Best Individual Performance, Drama, for her one-woman show, “La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas.” “I was completely shocked that I won,” Cooper said Wednesday. “I mean like to the point that I was waiting, maybe I would be nominated for solo show or this or that, and then when those got announced, I started walking... Read More

Artists in Conversation is a weekly column running Wednesdays on QuadCities.com. It features a conversation with a local creator 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! THIS WEEK: Educator, director and performance artist Shelley Cooper who is at the helm of Circa ‘21’s BEEHIVE! What attracted you to BEEHIVE? Beehive is a 60’s concert to celebrate... Read More

The fourth full season of Mississippi Bend Players will feature a total of five performers over three productions this summer at Augustana College’s Brunner Theatre Center. After it was forced to cancel its 2020 in-person season, the 2021 lineup will be: “Red” (June 17-20), by John Logan, directed by Catherine Bodenbender and featuring MBP favorites Mike Schulz and Tristan Odenkirk. Master abstract expressionist Mark Rothko has just landed the biggest commission in the history of modern art, a series of murals for New York’s famed Four Seasons Restaurant. In the two fascinating years... Read More

Black Box Theater in Moline is back with  “La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas,” starring Shelley Cooper, for just three performances — March 26-28. The show, inspired by the life and work of the dramatic 20th-century opera singer Maria Callas (1923-1977), contains stories of Callas’ life and famous iconic arias that she was known for singing. Cooper – an assistant professor of theatre arts at Augustana College — “La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas” at Augustana and at the Retzhof Castle near Graz, Austria, as a part of the International Global Theatre Experience. That... Read More