[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.)

MUSIC

The Carolina Chocolate Drops

Englert Theatre

Thursday, April 7, 7:30 p.m.

On April 7, Iowa City's Englert Theatre will play host to the latest guests in Hancher Auditorium's 2010-11 Visiting Artists series, The Carolina Chocolate Drops.

Mmmm ... Carolina Chocolate Drops ... .

My Homer Simpson impression doesn't play so well in print, but trust me, it's awesome.

Nearly everyone who was of TV-viewing age in 1963, it seems, remembers where they were on the day President John F. Kennedy was shot. For writer/performer/instructor Arlene Malinowski, that day is especially memorable, because as she recalls, it was one of the first times that this hearing child of Deaf parents had to act as her parents' translator.

"I'm six, I'm in the first grade," says the Chicago-based Malinowski, "and I remember coming home from school, and they're in a dark living room watching the television, and they're crying. And my father says, 'Tell me what's on the TV,' and my mother says to my father, 'No, no, no, leave her alone - she's a kid.' But I'm like, 'No, I can do this!'

"So I'm listening," she continues, "and the man on TV is using a lot of big words. Words I don't understand, like 'assassinate' and 'motorcade' and 'depository.' I figured out that 'assassinate' was 'killed,' but I couldn't figure out what 'depository' meant. And then I remembered that Daddy deposits money into the bank, so it must mean 'the bank.' So I told my father, 'The president man has been shot, he's dead in his car, and a bank robber killed him.'

"And here's the coda to it: They never [definitively] figured out who shot the president. So I am not necessarily wrong."

EXHIBIT 

Celebrating Ideas: Bridging Communities with Augustana's Liberal Arts through the AGES

Figge Art Museum

Saturday, March 19, through Sunday, May 29

The Figge Art Museum's latest exhibition is Celebrating Ideas: Bridging Communities with Augustana's Liberal Arts Through the AGES, and the accompanying image is of one of the displayed ceramic pieces, created circa 340-330 B.C.E. Its ascribed title? Red-Figure Dish with Running Female Figure with Wreath & Ivy-Garnished Phiale.

Man, these highfalutin B.C.E. artists with their cryptic titles ... .