Quad City Music Guild's Thursday-night preview performance of Peter Pan - which, it should be stressed, was still technically a rehearsal - clocked in at roughly an hour and 55 minutes, making director Beth Marsoun's presentation at least a half-hour shorter than any of the four other Peter Pans I've thus far seen on stage. This proved, at alternating times, to be both a very good thing and a rather unfortunate thing. But let's start with the good.
Quad City Music Guild's Hello, Dolly! seems something of a self-parody, as director Erin Lounsberry amps up the silliness of the piece, reveling in the fun of it rather than taking this story of the matchless matchmaker too seriously. It's Lounsberry's almost campy approach that makes the production worth seeing, with Tristan Layne Tapscott and Bryan Tank carrying much of its wacky weight.
I had an utterly fantastic time at Quad City Music Guild's preview performance of The Drowsy Chaperone, director Bob Williams' high-spirited and hysterical presentation of the long-running Broadway hit. Yet I'm embarrassed to say that I may have inadvertently missed 10 of its most entertaining minutes, because I made what was, in retrospect, a terrible mistake: I left the auditorium during intermission.
The Shakespeare-inspired Elvis Presley pastiche All Shook Up is too inconsequential and ridiculous - gloriously so - to feature anything resembling a moral. But if pressed, you could probably fashion one from the words of its motorcycle-riding hero, Chad: "It's like my daddy used to say: 'In the right light, with the right liquor, anyone can fall for anyone.'"
I'm sure there are those of you who don't think Mel Brooks' musical comedy The Producers is all that enjoyable, especially if your only acquaintance with the show is 2005's film version. But even if you felt burned by that woebegone adaptation, I urge you to check out Quad City Music Guild's current take on Brooks' modern classic, so you can see just how sublimely hysterical this material can actually be; I'm guessing that the only audiences who could possibly leave director Kevin Pieper's glorious show-biz satire in a bad mood are the easily offended and the abjectly humorless. (And you know who you are, because upon reading that, you instinctively presumed I was referring to you.)
There seems to be a pretty safe rule of thumb regarding the productions at Quad City Music Guild and the Richmond Hill and Playcrafters Barn theatres: When the actors appear to believe in their material (whether that material is strong or weak), the shows are terrific, and when they don't, they're not.Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
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