When actor/playwright Tom Dugan premiered his one-man show Robert E. Lee: Shades of Gray in Richmond, Virginia, in 2004, the packed audience at the Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts gave the production a standing ovation. Crowds were similarly enthusiastic after subsequent performances in Tennessee, West Virginia, and Georgia, and when Dugan performed Shades of Gray in Lexington mere days before his Quad Cities arrival, the show was sold-out long in advance of its January 11 opening.
Southern audiences, it seems, have been most appreciative of Dugan's historical endeavor. But what of Northern audiences?
"I'll let you know after I get through Davenport," says Dugan during a recent phone interview. "You guys - you count as the north, don'tcha?"
We certainly do.
Dugan laughs. "I'm finally invading the north!"
You can tell that the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's production of Strangers on a Train is doing its job, and doing it quite well, because - at Friday's opening-night performance, at any rate - the show appears to be making a large segment of its audience really uncomfortable.
STOMP THE YARD
I was talking to someone, and she hadn't ever seen an opera," recalls Stacy Eckert, who performs the title role in Opera Quad Cities' new production of Carmen. "And I was trying to explain Carmen, and I said, 'Well, I bet you know more tunes from the show than you think you do.' And she said, 'Aw, no, I don't know any of them.'
CHILDREN OF MEN
Most of my friends have all but given up on going to the movies, and considering the quality of most movies nowadays, it's pretty hard to blame them. But what's alarming is that the people I talk to don't seem to be boycotting the cineplex in protest of what they're showing; they're protesting the audiences. And in that case, it's really hard to blame them.
DREAMGIRLS
