Debo Balogun and Christine Broughton in MachinalAt this time of the year, many people enjoy celebrating Halloween by being creeped out of their minds. Some enjoy cheesy slasher movies while others like to binge on The Walking Dead, and some religiously attend local spook houses such as Rock Island's Skellington Manor. Yet the most haunting, and even the creepiest, experience I have had in a long time happened at Augustana College's latest theatrical exploration of social justice: Machinal.

I have a confession: Since discovering my passion for the theatre, I've intentionally avoided the works of Anton Chekov. So many of my theatre friends consider Chekov to be the pinnacle of playwrights, placing him even higher than Shakespeare, yet fearing that I'd be excommunicated should I not like his works, I stayed away from them altogether. But now, after seeing the opening-night performance of Augustana College's The Seagull, I must form and share my opinion. So here it is: It turns out I like Chekov. A lot.

 

Supposedly a family-friendly audience favorite, The Secret Garden, currently being performed at Augustana College, is an emotional but often downright dreary musical based on the classic children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I know few children - or adults, for that matter - with the stamina to make it through this production, which lasted almost three hours on opening night. But duration aside, the decision by director Jeff Coussens and musical director John Pfautz to even attempt to stage Garden, with its cast of 19 in the relatively-intimate Potter Hall, was an audacious one that succeeded on both vocal and visual levels.

"Much Ado About Nothing" In the realm of educational theatre, the audience's enjoyment should always be secondary to what the students take from their theatrical experiences. So I certainly hope that 2006's productions were meaningful for the students in Augustana College's, St. Ambrose University's, and Black Hawk College's theatre programs, because this particular audience member had a great time at their shows.