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.

The cast members in St. Ambrose University's production of Working offer a somewhat unexpected and altogether delightful sincerity in their portrayals of American workers in various trades. These young actors, after all, presumably don't have much, if any, career experience as full-time masons, receptionists, or prostitutes, among other professions. Yet they handle this musical as though possessing full knowledge of the experiences of the average worker, which, during Wednesday's dress rehearsal, helped me connect with the oftentimes funny, sometimes touching material.

Kimberly Furness[Author's note: The following was written for TheCurtainbox.com, the Web site for our area's Curtainbox Theatre Company, of which I've been a proud member for nearly a year.]

 

Recently, Curtainbox Theatre Company founder Kim Furness and I sat down over a glass of wine - all right, maybe a couple of glasses - to celebrate her company's 10-year anniversary. She had recently taken over the directing position for the Curtainbox's latest production, Speed-the-Plow (in the wake of original helmer Philip W. McKinley's recruitment as new director of Broadway's Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark), and during our conversation, was happy to share her thoughts on the company's history. (The David Mamet comedy Speed-the-Plow - featuring Erin Churchill, Dan Hernandez, and myself - runs at the Village of East Davenport's Village Theatre from April 10 through 23, with preview performances April 8 & 9.)

This past Saturday, I had the unique opportunity to catch two local theatrical productions: St. Ambrose University's Narnia (an hour-long stage version of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe) and the Quad City Music Guild's presentation of It's a Wonderful Life: The Musical. (Both closed on Sunday, December 3.)

Despite obvious differences in subject matter and audience demographic - Narnia was geared toward the 10-and-under set, while Wonderful Life was designed for ... well, pretty much everyone else - the shows did bear a striking similarity, in that both were musical adaptations of decidedly un-musical works with enormous fan bases; St. Ambrose and Music Guild could probably have secured full houses based on the titles alone.