items tagged with Kimberly Furness

[Author's note: The following was written for TheCurtainbox.com, the Web site for our area's Curtainbox Theatre Company, of which I've been a proud member for nearly a year.]

Recently, Curtainbox Theatre Company founder Kim Furness and I sat down over a glass of wine – all right, maybe a couple of glasses – to celebrate her company's 10-year anniversary. She had recently taken over the directing position for the Curtainbox's latest production, Speed-the-Plow (in the wake of original helmer Philip W. McKinley’s recruitment as new director of Broadway’s Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark), and during our conversation, was happy to share her thoughts on the company’s history. (The David Mamet comedy Speed-the-Plow – featuring Erin Churchill, Dan Hernandez, and myself – runs at the Village of East Davenport’s Village Theatre from April 10 through 23, with preview performances April 8 & 9.)

As we’ve come to annually expect, there was practically no end to the highlights from this past year in area theatre.

Directed by David Bonde, the Curtainbox Theatre Company’s Hedda Gabler starts off on a happy, frivolous tone. As George Tesman (Reader employee Mike Schulz) tells his Aunt Julie (Corinne Johnson) about the honeymoon from which he’s just returned, they share smiles and hopeful, knowing glances. Yet several minutes into this, during Tuesday night’s performance, I was a bit bored, wondering why the Curtainbox – which had consistently produced weighty, thoughtful material – was suddenly producing a script filled with such lighthearted but fundamentally pointless drivel.

And then Kimberly Furness made her entrance.

(Author's note: I'm a proud ensemble member of the Curtainbox Theatre Company, and along with interviewee Lora Adams, am serving as co-associate producer on Wit.)

"When you hear that word - cancer - it's very surreal," says WQPT-TV Director of Marketing Lora Adams, regarding her 2008 diagnosis with the disease. "There's a moment when the reality of it not being a television show, or not happening to somebody else's family, has to sort of settle in. You have that moment of 'Holy crap.' And then once that happens, you move forward."
Read More About The Soul Of "Wit": Lora Adams On The Curtainbox Theatre Company’S Cancer Drama, And Her Own Struggles With The Disease...

Wednesday night's preview performance of the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Squabbles was never funnier than when its two elder characters were engaged in the titular activity. Unfortunately, they didn't squabble as much as the show's title might lead you to believe. Fortunately, however, the parts of author Marshall Karp's play that are low on humor are high on sentiment, and created a far more touching experience than I expected.
Read More About In-Laws & Disorder: "Squabbles," At The Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse Through August 28...