Although best known for his fast-paced verbal slapsticks, Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning playwright Neil Simon has also exposed a more serious side in such works as Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound, and Lost in Yonkers, and Simon's knack for both comedy and drama will be on display in Playcrafters' March 9 through 18 staging of Proposals, a work the Houston Press called “gentle and warm, like a late August breeze ruffling the leaves.”

Hosted by Davenport's River Action and named in honor of Henry W. Farnam, the chief builder of the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad, the Quad Cities' Farnam Dinners are annual tributes to historically signifcant citizens and events, and this year's celebration – taking place at Jumer's Casino & Hotel on March 9 – will salute Illinois' 200th year of statehood, as well as the 200th anniversary of Kaskaskia being named Illinois' very first capital.

A dark comedy of desire, gamesmanship, and shifting power dynamics hits the QC Theatre Workshop when the Davenport venue presents the area debut of the Brodway hit Venus in Fur, a 2011 Tony Award winner that the New York Times called “a seriously smart and very funny stage seminar on the destabilizing nature of sexual desire,” and that Time Out New York lauded as “deliciously twisty and witty fun.”

With the New York Times calling it “the kind of unheralded gem that sends people into the streets babbling and bright-eyed with the desire to spread the word,” author Annie Baker's thoughtful comedy Circle Mirror Transformation will be staged at Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center March 9 through 11 – the annual presentation for which students from the theatre department’s Play production class were responsible for auditioning, casting, directing, scenic design, lighting and sound design, costume design, and stage management.

Making a local stop on her latest national tour, Kentucky-based comedienne and Southern Fried Chicks headliner Etta May brings her reputation as “The Queen of Southern Sass” to the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, her March 8 event – and her tour's title – promoting the low-rent pleasures of “Box Wine & Gas-Station Chicken.”

To download a PDF of the puzzle, click here.

From its first minutes, this slapstick by directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein is the complete opposite of a disappointment – a cleverly plotted, utterly riotous comic adventure with no agenda beyond delivering a great time, which it does with almost disarming confidence and skill. I don't want to review the film so much as send it a thank-you note.

The latest guest musician and educator in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artist Series, the noted pianist, composer, recording artist, and former Black Hawk College instructor Corey Kendrick will meet with area students and also perform locally in a pair of concerts on March 6 and 9, treating audiences to the talents that led Downbeat Magazine to call Kendrick a “very accomplished, highly gifted jazz pianist,” and IDigJazz.com to deem him “a dynamic interpreter of standards.”