Everyone knows that Christmas is a time for peace on Earth and goodwill to men. Unless, of course, you’re an ever-opinionated but lovable first-grader who, in director Kiera Lynn's Junie B. Jones in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, is brought from page to stage, hilariously, by portrayer Natalie Scheers.

Directed by Dana Skiles, My Son Is Crazy, but Promising boasts 15 actors, and while about half of the characters don’t especially move the plot along, there wasn’t anyone who didn’t bring their “A” game.

The scenes featuring Savannah Bay Strandin and Stephanie Moeller were particularly engaging highlights of this Dial M for Murder.

“Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” Or so goes the quip famously attributed to Benjamin Franklin – and 157 years after Franklin’s death, Tennessee Williams’ renowned A Streetcar Named Desire was first performed, perfectly embodying Franklin’s quote.

I’ll admit it: When I read the plot description of the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's latest offering, The Money in Uncle George’s Suitcase, I presumed it was going to be a slightly predictable but funny little story.

If you’re anything like me, from the moment you step into the Prospect Park Auditorium, you’ll be swept away by the stark and rickety set that is the little village of Anatevka, and the fact that the titular Fiddler is already just chilling on the roof. You might miss Josiah Wollan initially – he kind of blends in and the set is merely backlit – but his humanity emanates from time to time in small movements ... or, at least, it did at Friday’s opening-night performance of Quad City Music Guild's Fiddler on the Roof.

Dear Quad Cities Theatergoer,

It may seem strange that I should be writing this letter, the explanation being that 84 Charing Cross Road, now playing at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre, is a play that is almost exclusively epistolatory in nature: The story is told through the recitation of letters. The opening-night performance was a charming evening, and in telling you about it, I could think of no better method than through that of a letter.

If you’re looking for a high-energy musical set on and around Independence Day (nice timing there, folks!), you won’t regret spending the evening grooving In the Heights.

With freshly painted arches and some ghostly trees on the furthest front flats, set designer Miranda Callahan’s work on Medea was interesting enough to generally distract me from the gnats that were apparently immune to insect repellent.

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