27
Aug
2008
In describing Davenport Parks & Recreation's recent choice of Daniel D.P. Sheridan for its performing-arts-coordinator position, the organization's senior recreation manager, Theresa Hauman, says, "We want to become a vital performing-arts center, with the main hub of that being the Junior Theatre program, and with his school training, the experiences that he's had nationwide, and the fact that he is from the community and a product of Junior Theatre ... he really hit it out of the ballpark."
DEATH RACE
America's first drive-in theatre - which was also the world's first drive-in theatre - opened on June 6, 1933, and the act of watching movies from one's car proved so enduringly popular that now, 75 years later, hundreds of drive-ins can be found in locations all across the country.
Prior to its appearance on the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's 2008 schedule, I hadn't heard of the Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten comedy Dearly Beloved, so I was reasonably surprised when I arrived for Thursday's opening-night presentation and saw that, barring a handful of seats, the house was completely full. (Did these people know something I didn't?) I took it as a good sign, however, and there was an even more promising one not 60 seconds after the show started, when its first line, its very first, earned a huge, unexpected laugh.
Church Basement Ladies is a show I'd love to be hateful towards, because it sort of compresses everything I don't traditionally enjoy in musical theatre into one convenient package, and because its four-nonsecular-girls-and-a-guy conceit is such a blatant ripoff of those pitiful sequels to Nunsense, in which creator Danny Goggin decided to spice things up by adding a man to the mix. (I'd call Church Basement Ladies an unapologetic ripoff, except we Lutherans are apologetic about damn near everything.)
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
In its opening minutes, Quad City Music Guild's Evita is so thrilling that even though the production begins with a funeral, I found it nearly impossible to stifle my giggles.
