Jackson Green, Jordan Webster-Moore, and  Becca Brazel in Noises OffMichael Frayn’s 1982 comedy Noises Off, which will be performed by the St. Ambrose theatre department this weekend, is a fast-paced, riotously wacky farce full of witty lines and tremendous physical comedy, and I can’t believe that, prior to Tuesday night’s rehearsal, I had never seen it before. This has, indeed, been my loss.

Arriving for the 10 a.m. production of St. Ambrose University's Junie B. in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells on December 3, what first caught my eye were the big yellow school buses parked outside, and I realized, "Ah, yes, I'm going back to elementary school today." (This was a scheduled school performance not open to the general public.) Inside the Galvin Fine Arts Center, I was transported into a first-grade "classroom" that consisted of Junie B. Jones and her friends on stage and the elementary students who filled the large auditorium to capacity. The juxtaposition of the joyous, high energy in this "classroom" and my feelings roused from recent world and national tragedies made me think about the world we have made for these children, wherein their innocence will be lost all too soon, and the more that laughter rang in the room, the more poignant my feelings became.

St. Ambrose University's Commedia Dell'arte, which closed its one-weekend run on April 19 *, was like nothing I'd previously seen on a local stage. Director/writer Daniel Rairdin-Hale and composer Dillon Rairdin put together a production that felt like a sequence of sketch-comedy bits and musical numbers, but one linked by a story about a mistaken romance forbidden by two fathers. Servants step in to help the young lovers, and hilarity ensued by way of juggling, dancing, singing, the playing of instruments, and comical gags both aural and physical, with most of the actors performing in mask.

Originated in Italy in the 16th Century, the theatrical form commedia dell'arte traditionally finds a group of actors participating in a comedic scenario featuring slapstick conceits called mécanisme. And for his original commedia dell'arte presentation at St. Ambrose University, one fittingly titled Commedia Dell'arte, director Daniel Rairdin-Hale insists that he and his cast have come up with some mécanisme doozies.

Sam Jones and Jordan McGinnis in Glengarry Glen RossGlengarry Glen Ross was my introduction to the writing of David Mamet, with the 1992 film version of his play marking my first exposure to his work. Awestruck, I fell in love with Mamet's vulgar, layered, verbose style, which made it difficult for me to go into St. Ambrose University's new production without high expectations. Fortunately, though, director Corinne Johnson and her cast and crew - particularly set designer Kris Eitrheim - get it mostly right.