Canaan Cox, Nina Schreckengost, Jody Allan Lee, Jonathan Scott Roth, AJ Haut, and Rachelle Walljasper in Hank Williams: Lost HighwayAfter seeing Friday's performance of Hank Williams: Lost Highway at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, I am reassessing my typical disdain for jukebox musicals, particularly those that are biographies of particular artists wrapped inside collections of their greatest hits. Playwrights Randal Myler and Mark Harelik, here, managed to create a work that - in addition to being cohesive and easy to follow - nicely weaves Williams' hits into the story and is incredibly interesting to boot. And thanks to a pleasingly lengthy, Hee-Haw-esque scene in the middle of the second act, Myler and Harelik also avoid the seemingly too-frequent theatrical trend of shows with second acts that are much too serious and downbeat.

Deidra Grace, Sara King, C.J. Williams, Kiarri D. Andrews, Nina Schreckengost, Joseph J. Baez, Joanthan Scott Roth, Patricia Gibson, and Denzel Edmondson in Smokey Joe's CafePrior to the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's opening-night performance of Smokey Joe's Café, and immediately following the Bootleggers' "birth of rock 'n' roll"-themed pre-show, my partner's daughter, Hannah, tried to argue that the doo-wop style of music heard in the wait staff's entertainment was not rock n' roll because ... well, because she's 13 and knows everything, the history of the genre be damned. Yet despite also proclaiming that she hated this sort of "it's not really rock 'n' roll" music that I warned her would populate the entire evening's entertainment, Hannah was all smiles at intermission, excitedly talking about how much she loved the songs, and even citing a few favorites by name. I hope Hannah's changes of opinion and attitude are testaments to the quality of Circa '21's endeavor. It's truly fantastic.