Sometimes I will read a great book, or see a great play, and wait in excited expectation for the author’s next work. That was my feeling when I attended the District Theatre’s May 13 production of A Behanding in Spokane.
From the moment you step foot into the Playcrafters Barn Theatre for its production of Mama Won’t Fly – a comedy by the popular team of Jamie Wooten, Jessie Jones, and Nicholas Hope – you’ll hear Route 66 cruising music that gets you in the mood to take a road trip. The show itself subsequently delivers that trip, plus a few extra surprises.
At a time when current events make the world seem very dark and sick, the holidays remind us to reminisce with old friends, break out the carols, and bake a batch of Grandma's legendary cookies. One recipe to such a cruel world can be found in the District Theatre's current production Big Rock Candy Christmas. A sequel to last year's Big Rock Candy Mountain, this Christmas-flavored chapter brings back the same characters from the original with a new mission, new music, and even a few new faces.
Taking The Addams Family as a sign, I'm excited about the District Theatre's future in downtown Rock Island's former Argus building, and while there are still a few growing pains to overcome, the company is clearly off to a good start.
Agatha Christie's whodunit The Mousetrap is among my favorites in the genre, mostly due to the humor the author wrote into it, as well as the clues she included that make it possible to actually discern who did do it. Although the murderer's identity still comes as something of a shock, the game of figuring out the killer remains fun. I just wish the District Theatre's current production of the piece were as enjoyable.
Passion counts for a lot in drama, and sincerity counts for a lot plus, and both qualities are in welcome abundance in the Center for Living Arts' presentation of the adolescent-angst musical bare. Another theatrical commitment kept me away during opening weekend, but if you haven't yet caught up with the show, I heartily recommend taking advantage of its three-weekend run; you could conceivably ask for a stronger production, but only a complete boor would dare ask for a more heartfelt one, or one that exuded more enthusiasm and feeling from its clearly, beautifully invested participants.
Friday's performance of the Center for Living Arts' Spring Awakening wasn't perfect. But it was in the production's imperfections that its main strengths were revealed, because the earnestness in the actors' portrayals wound up overshadowing the pitch problems, and the enthusiasm of director Dino Hayz's young-adult cast - who performed the hell out of the piece - proved so infectious and stirring that the show still proved effective.
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