In the minutes following the announcement of this year's Academy Awards nominations, media outlets were abuzz about the downbeat nature of the major contenders, and it was widely predicted that this year's Oscar telecast - which aired on Sunday, March 5 - would be the lowest-rated one in ages.

Super Granny

For a current Virginian, Beverly van Hook knows her Quad Cities. The author was selected by the Midwest Writing Center to be the guest speaker at the organization's Silver Anniversary Awards Banquet - at the Outing Club on Saturday, March 11 - and the decision makes sense.

The following are the nominees for the 2006 Academy Awards telecast, scheduled to air on ABC affiliate WQAD-TV at 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 5. (Note: Boldface denotes Mike's projected winner in each category.)

The idea started with a traffic jam. "This was two years ago," says local poet and storyteller Shellie Moore Guy, regarding the origin of her domestic-abuse performance piece Healing Waters: I Will Carry My Sister's Pain.
New Ground Theatre's presentation of Rebecca Gilman's stalker drama Boy Gets Girl is sensationally entertaining stuff - the most consistently smartly acted and directed work I've yet seen from this organization - and the production becomes all the more impressive when you realize just how easily it could have proven unbearable.

Jeez, you take one week off from regular movie reviewing and you fall so behind ... .

Let me preface my review of the Richmond Hill Players' The Sunshine Boys by saying that if the material itself makes you laugh, you may well be a fan of this production, and at Thursday's opening-night performance, there were quite a few laughers among us.

In discussing this year's Oscar races in the picture, director, and the acting categories, we may as well begin with the nominee area audiences had the least chance of catching, as it was the only major contender yet to get an area release: Duncan Tucker's Transamerica.

So, you've entered your office's Oscar pool - and it's a good Oscar pool, one in which they make you guess the winners in every category - and now you're in a pickle. Best Foreign Language Film? You haven't seen any of the nominees.

Like many who wind up pursuing a life in the theatre, Camanche, Iowa, native Dave Bonde never intended to; his plan was to secure a B.A. in Mass Communication. Yet after appearing in his first theatrical production at St. Ambrose University in 1991, Bonde found himself hooked by the allure of the stage, partly because of its connection to his own field of study.

Pages