items tagged with Leaving Iowa

The Reader's chief theatre reviewer, Thom White, saw and wrote about 52 area stage productions in 2011. I saw 39 and reviewed 12. Obviously, during our second-annual breakfast chat on the Year in Theatre, there was a bit to talk about.

It doesn’t happen often, especially if you attend a lot of local theatre – where the on-stage faces tend to become familiar ones. But every once in a while, you’ll be at a production that you’re really enjoying, and gradually realize that you’re routinely focusing on one performer above the others – and asking yourself, with a grin, “Who is that?”

Described by the Chicago Sun-Times as “simultaneously hilarious and touching,” the road-trip comedy Leaving Iowa is the final presentation in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s 2011 season. Leaving Iowa is also the first presentation in Black Hawk College’s 2011-12 theatre season, but don’t chalk that up to either coincidence or some sort of Moline-based rivalry; the productions are actually one and the same.