Anthony Natarelli, Liv Lyman, Erin Platt, Sara Wegener, Nancy Teerlinck, Jason Platt, Jennifer Sondgeroth, David Miller, and Christopher Tracy in The Addams FamilyTaking 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.

Valeree Pieper, John Weigandt, John Antonin Dieter, Callen Brown, Mark McGinn, David Miller, and Tom Naab in UrinetownUrinetown is one of my top-five-favorite musicals, due to the many songs with memorable, singable melodies by composer/lyricist Mark Hollmann and lyricist Greg Kotis, as well as Kotis' sharply funny, self-referential book. Unfortunately, I was almost immediately disappointed with Quad City Music Guild's production of the show during Wednesday's final dress rehearsal, because the first full minute of director Heather Beck's staging had the ensemble cast frozen in place (and for what actually felt like two to three minutes) during the overture. Yet while my heart sank seeing this dull, uninteresting start to such a creative piece of musical theatre, thankfully, once the overture ended, I wasn't disappointed at any other point during Music Guild's presentation.