items tagged with Steve Flanigin

Scott Community College’s Blue Sky Merchants is an interesting idea that doesn’t reach its potential, mainly due to its absence of subtlety. Local playwright and actor John R. Turner’s play about a man (simply named Deskman, and played by Turner) who listens to, and then green-lights or rejects, ideas for television shows could be a poignant commentary on modern society's tastes in entertainment. Yet while Turner has a laudable knack for dialogue, Thursday’s production left me with too-little question as to his intended message, mainly because his Deskman character clearly states the author's intent, rather than allowing the audience to decipher it.

During Thursday's presentation, actor James Thames seemed out of place in Scott Community College's The Actor’s Nightmare, acting like he was acting, offering a limited range of emotions and inflections, and speaking with a note of desperation in his tone. However, his amateurish performance, whether by design or not, actually proved spot-on for this comedy in which a non-actor finds himself forced to perform roles in four plays with no prior rehearsals.

Playwright Tom Dudzick’s Don’t Talk to the Actors seems a good fit for the actors at Scott Community College. This story of a young playwright’s first play to be produced in New York City includes a range of characters to suit many acting styles – from meek and innocent to hammy and bawdy – and director Steve Flanigin’s cast elicited many laughs during Thursday night’s handling of Dudzick’s material.

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.

I find it easy to like Scott Community College's production of The War of the Worlds, an adaptation of H.G. Wells' tale of alien invasion, presented here in the radio-drama style of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. The performance may not be the best you'll see in the Quad Cities, but the show features so much heart – such simple pleasure in performing – that it's refreshing to sit and watch the show's young men and women play on stage.