“Middletown,” November 30 through December 3

Thursday, November 30, through Sunday, December 3

Scott Community College's Black Box Theatre, 500 Belmont Road, Bettendorf IA

Hailed by Newsday as “a lusciously written, strangely poignant, dizzyingly modern spin on life,” and by Time Out New York as “utterly spellbinding,” playwright Will Eno's Middletown enjoys a November 30 through December 3 run in Scott Community College's Black Box Theatre, this expansive series of vignettes also lauded by the New York Times as a “delicate, moving, piercing, tart, funny, gorgeous” play that “glimmers from start to finish.”

A deeply affecting, oftentimes hilarious of the universe that is a small American community, Middletown follows the relationship that develops between longtime resident John Dodge and new arrival Mary Swanson. Mary has just moved to Middletown eager to start a family and enjoy the neighborly bonds a small town promises. But after befriending John, she is quick to discover that below Middletown’s flinchingly honest exterior lies something much more complex. In this fascinating 2010 stage piece that TheatreMania called "a modern-day equivalent to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town" that's "richly engaging and satisfyingly theatrical," the lives of the inhabitants of Middletown intersect in strange and poignant ways, their journey taking them, and the audience, from the local library to outer space and innumerable points in between.

Directing Middletown is SCC theatre instructor Kevin Babbitt, whose previous works for his department have included Greater Tuna, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, and The Laramie Project, and whose on-stage area-theatre appearances include roles in the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's Over the River & Through the Woods, Leaving Iowa, and The 39 Steps, as well as the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's On Golden Pond and Tuesdays with Morrie. And featured in Babbitt's cast are no fewer than 16 talented student actors: Casey Bergthold; Kat Claussen; Aria Defoe; Eli DeZarn; Dezzie Farnsworth; Maesi Geigle; Nayah Haley; Chenoa Henderson; Ben Herrington; Olivia Hoft; MJ Kernan; Perin McGrath; Beka Pace; Braden Shipman; Alexander Shoemaker; and Callie Thomas.

Middletown will be staged in Scott Community College's Black Box Theatre (in downstairs Room #1021 through Door 3) from November 30 through December 3, with performances Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Admission is $8 at the door, and more information is available by calling (563)441-4339 or e-mailing director Kevin Babbitt at KDBabbitt@eicc.edu.