Abby Van Gerpen, Pat Flaherty, and Brant Peitersen in Buried Child

One thing I love about QC Theatre Workshop productions is that from the moment you walk into the building, you’re not walking into a converted gymnasium – you're walking into a specific space in which the story you're about to see takes place. I've previously participated in a couple of QCTW shows, one of them a Sam Shepard play, and can say that the company did a fantastic job of re-creating its space for the October 14 performance of Shepard's Buried Child. Scenic designer Matt Elliott and painter Emma Brutman have created a set that creeps you out from the moment you step foot into the playing area. The moldy walls appear to be crying, bleeding, or both, and the mold ends in jagged, sharp edges that look like bite marks, giving the whole set a sense of decomposition that fits this play perfectly.

Susan Perrin-Sallak, Brant Peitersen, and Mike Schulz in Inheritors

“The word 'theatre' comes from the Greeks. It means 'the seeing place.' It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.” – Stella Adler

The QC Theatre Workshop's latest production, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (and Davenport native) Susan Glaspell's Inheritors, is rightly the place to look for one's truth in life, and to understand views on a diverse archive of social situations.

Angela Elliott, Michael Carron, Abby Van Gerpen, Laila Haley, Joshua Pride, Erin Churchill, and Jordan McGinnis in The Big Meal, photo courtesy of Jessica Sheridan and Shared Light PhotographyBefore seeing Saturday's production of The Big Meal, my wife, youngest son, and I decided to grab supper. I wanted pizza, but my wife wanted to try something different, so we landed at a little restaurant just a few blocks east of the theatre. As we ate our hummus and falafel, we chatted about family, work, the future, and life in general. Little did we know that our simple meal together would be an almost mirrored precursor to what we were about to witness on stage.

Brad Hauskins, Marc Ciemiewicz, and Kelly Lohrenz

Judging by the children dancing in the aisles during Saturday's performance, Circa '21's current children's offering Diary of a Worm, a Spider, & a Fly is a hit with younger audience members. But the hour-long musical also has quite a few laughs for the adults.

When the kids weren't laughing at playwright Joan Cushing's fart jokes or Worm describing his sister as having a "face that looks like her butt," I was laughing at what I assume are director Kimberly Furness' additions of pop-culture references. My favorite was Worm and Fly singing along to "Carry on My Wayward Son" after being told to "Please enjoy this music while your party is reached" when they call Spider's cell phone.

Playwright Bert V. Royal's Dog Sees God, which is basically Peanuts set in high school, is tough to swallow; it's not easy to hear comic-strip characters - cherished for their innocence - cussing and talking about sex. Yet while it's offensive, the script is also deeply sad, something the Harrison Hilltop Theatre's current production doesn't quite grasp until the play gets really, really sad.

Into the WoodsInto the Woods (August 10 - 12, 2007): The Green Room's debut production was Stephen Sondheim's and James Lapine's fairy-tale musical, and many of its cast members had previously worked with director Derek Bertelsen (also the venue's Executive Director) and music director Tyson Danner (the Artistic Director) in the pair's previous, fund-raising performances for the Children's Therapy Center of the Quad Cities: 2005's Ragtime and 2006's The Secret Garden. Both vividly remember opening night.

 

Derek: It smelled like fresh paint.

Tyson: It did. We painted that morning.

Susan McPeters, Angela Elliott, and Abby VanGerpen in Eleemosynary Before praising the Green Room's lovely, charming production of Eleemosynary - the Lee Blessing comedy/drama that ran February 22 through 24 - I feel compelled to also praise the show's Friday-night audience. Actually, I feel compelled to praise the audiences at each of the productions I've attended in this Rock Island space; for fellow theatre devotees who tend to grow hostile near patrons who routinely cough, shift in their seats, slowly open cellophane-wrapped candies, and forget to turn off their cell phones, the Green Room is easily the area's venue of choice.