The Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's current family musical, Pinkalicious, is as lightweight and sweet as cotton candy, and about as nourishing; it gives you a friendly sugar rush and all but evaporates on contact. Yet hidden within the show's pleasant, amiable presentation are moments of delightfully loopy comic invention, and throwaway bits so surprising and bubbly and odd that the production lingers in your head far longer than you'd expect it to. It's cotton candy, all right, but it's cotton candy filled with Pop Rocks.
I'm not sure where Barbara Park got the inspiration for her literary heroine Junie B. Jones, the adorable kindergarten heroine/hellion of the author's series of wildly popular children's books. But after seeing the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's presentation of Junie B. Jones & a Little Monkey Business, I have a pretty firm theory: Park swiped the characterization from kindergarten-era home movies taken of actress Sunshine Ramsey.
In describing Davenport Parks & Recreation's recent choice of Daniel D.P. Sheridan for its performing-arts-coordinator position, the organization's senior recreation manager, Theresa Hauman, says, "We want to become a vital performing-arts center, with the main hub of that being the Junior Theatre program, and with his school training, the experiences that he's had nationwide, and the fact that he is from the community and a product of Junior Theatre ... he really hit it out of the ballpark."
On Sunday morning, I started writing my piece on the musical revue I'd seen the night before, and here's how I began my first draft:Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
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