With the crowned winner receiving a cash prize and a featured spot in the Capitol Theatre's Wickedest City Burlesque & Variety Fest on Saturday, April 18, the Wickedest Performer burlesque competition will be held at Davenport's Adler Theatre on April 16, the evening featuring electrifying artists from across the country, including Arizona, North Carolina, Seattle, Des Moines, and the Quad Cities.

Taking place as part of the venue's popular "Kaffee und Kuchen" series, the German American Heritage Center's Verschleppt: The Carrying Off of Markus & Anna Mattes will offer a haunting, moving family saga on April 12, the program presented by John Mattes and Debbi Nitekman Kohl, the latter of whom will also deliver a powerful performance on piano.

With the Richmond Times-Dispatch insisting that while the title "might suggest another church lady play ... the charitable sisters are more like the women of Steel Magnolias, with a few unexpected twists," author Bo Wilson's The Charitable Sisterhood of the Second Trinity Victory Church opens the 2026 season at Geneseo's Richmond Hill Barn Theatre with an area-debut April 16 through 26 run.

With Riverside Theatre's producing artistic director Adam Knight raving that “Emily Bohannon’s writing is one of the real pleasures of theatre today,” the playwright's stage piece The Fiancé enjoys a world-premiere April 16 through May 3 run at the Iowa City venue, Knight adding that Bohannon’s work "sheds light on characters seldom seen onstage, driven by a search for meaning in a vastness beyond the confines of New York, or even America.”