items tagged with Greg Bouljon

Apparently, director Gary Clark doesn’t think Playcrafters Barn Theatre audiences will get author Pat Cook’s jokes in the venue’s current If It’s Monday, This Must Be Murder, because almost every already-obvious punchline is accented with a combination of slow, careful enunciation and a physical action. For example, the main character, Michael Schmidt's Monday, is referenced in another character’s line, “Rainy days and Monday always get me down.” On Saturday, though, the actor saying this put vocal emphasis on the “Monday” and grandly gesticulated toward Schmidt, as though this rather lame attempt at humor needed to be clarified. It was one of many not-so-clever quips that were rendered even less funny through Clark's, and his cast's, efforts to make sure they weren't missed.

The Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s production of Rehearsal for Murder suffers from poor pacing, but excels in its sincere sentiment and charm. The actors, for the most part, tend to take too many beats between lines, which leads to sometimes-clunky dialogue progression. Still, Friday night’s performance was appealing for its overall emotional effect, and likable for the cast’s ability to move the audience to sympathetic sorrow for the main character’s heartache.

The plot of playwright Jeff Baron’s Visiting Mr. Green is quite simple and predictable. And Baron’s script is not as poignant as it seems to have been meant to be, especially since its message of accepting people’s differences – particularly the differences presented in this play – has been heard before, and in far more effective ways. That being said, the Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s production of Baron’s work is truly touching, with its strong sentimentality helping to disguise the play’s weaknesses.

"I think Playcrafters has traditionally had the reputation of being a stodgy old theatre that only does six comedies a year," says Tom Morrow, a frequent actor and director for Moline's venerable Barn Theatre. "And admittedly, we do a lot of comedies. But every once in a while, we try to stick our necks out and do something else."

That they do. In addition to the titles produced in conjunction with Playcrafters' 2009 "Diversity Initiative" - Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and August Wilson's Fences - other recent "something else"s have included 2005's Altar Call, a debuting, religiously themed drama written by local playwright Melissa McBain, and 2008's Promises, Promises, one of only a handful of musicals the theatre has produced during its 81-year history.

And on September 10, the Playcrafters Barn Theatre will actually present something of a blend of these latter two works - a debuting, religiously themed musical - when it premieres Hard to Believe, a song-filled re-telling of the Biblical story of Job, directed by Morrow, and written and composed by Tim Stoller and Jonathan Turner. Previously staged, in workshop form, at Rock Island's defunct Green Room Theatre in 2008 and Davenport's Zion Lutheran Church in 2009, Turner says that "the whole theme of the show is about the challenges of faith, and maintaining your faith in the face of all this tragedy."
Read More About Leap Of Faith: Playcrafters Presents The Biblical Musical "Hard To Believe," Opening September 10...

In the back of any Richmond Hill Barn Theatre program, you'll find a chronological listing of which shows have been produced at the theatre over its past 40 seasons. And while this catalog of titles is nothing if not varied, the assorted comedies, dramas, thrillers, and such do share a common link: Not one of these plays is one you'd feel compelled to attend with young kids in tow. (The Barn did house the holiday comedy The Best Christmas Pageant Ever in 2007, but that was a bonus offering added to the venue's annual six-show lineup and isn't mentioned in the program's inventory.)

On Thursday night, I attended Quad City Music Guild's preview performance of Seussical, and if you include St. Ambrose University's 2008 production of the one-act Seussical Jr. - and I most certainly do - it was the third time I'd seen this show in as many years. (Eldridge's Countryside Community Theatre produced its version in the summer of 2007.) If theatres would only oblige, I'm reasonably sure I could see it, and without any complaint, every year for the rest of my life.

Sydney Crumbleholme, a freshman at Moline High School, plays the title character in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's current Anne of Green Gables, and I doubt there has been a better, more inspiring piece of casting on area stages in all of 2008.

As the show's many, many stagings have taught us, so long as you have a great Maria, a good Captain von Trapp, and a bunch of cute kids, you can present even a really mediocre The Sound of Music and get away with it. And I'm happy to report that the Countryside Community Theatre's presentation of Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical has a great Maria, a good Captain von Trapp, and a bunch of cute kids. As for the rest of the production ... well, they're getting away with it.

In the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's current production of Anybody for Murder?, Christopher Tracy plays Max Harrington, a seemingly mild-mannered gentleman who, through the course of the play, will attempt to murder his wife, convince his girlfriend to assume her identity, attempt to murder his girlfriend, drug potential witnesses, and lie to everyone he comes in contact with. Yet while Max may be a monster, it's pretty apparent that Tracy himself is just about the best friend a moderately funny comedic thriller could ask for.

Choosing a favorite line of dialogue from A.R. Gurney's Sylvia is nearly impossible, as the playwright's hysterically clever and insightful comedy offers almost too many choices; some of Gurney's best jokes here are so spectacularly subtle that you barely register them. ("Just close your eyes and think of England" is an especially sharp throwaway.)