The Quad City SingersIn the beloved Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland films of the 1930s, staging a full-length musical production seemed ridiculously easy: A bunch of talented youths would simply unite with the rallying cry "Let's put on a show!"

Yet according to Lori Potts, director of the area vocal-jazz ensemble the Quad City Singers, her group's inception came about just as simply - although the rallying cry, in that case, was more along the lines of "Let's put on a concert!"

"It was really just kind of casual," says Potts of the Quad City Singers' 1994 beginnings. "Just friends getting together and deciding, 'You know, we like to sing, so let's form a group and see what happens.'"

Tom Walljasper, Sandra D Rivera, Tristan Layne Tapscott, and Erin Dickerson in Are We There Yet Five Extraordinary Ensembles

An actor friend of mine says he always wants to be the worst performer in everything he's in, because if the rest of the cast is doing stronger work than he is, that means the show is in really, really good shape. With that in mind, any actor worth his or her salt would be thrilled to be the worst performer among these five ensembles.

 

Erin O'Shea and J. Adam Lounsberry in Little Women In Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, the storytelling and language are already so musical that the decision to adapt the author's tale into a musical seems a little redundant. But as redundancies go, the musical version of Little Women is actually pretty good, and under the direction of Bob Williams, Quad City Music Guild's take on the show is pretty damned good - marvelously designed, staged, sung, and (apart from two glaringly inappropriate performances) acted. Alcott purists may gripe, and not without cause, but it'd be hard to gripe about Music Guild's presentation of the material, and, I think, impossible to gripe about the portrayal of Erin O'Shea, whose stunningly radiant turn as Jo March seems reason enough for the existence of a Little Women musical.

Anything Goes ensemble members There are actors in the Quad City Music Guild's current production of Anything Goes that are behaving like total idiots.

Thank God.

"The Wizard of Oz" ensemble members About halfway through the overture for the Quad City Music Guild's preview performance of The Wizard of Oz, my friend, sporting a huge grin, turned to me and whispered, "I feel like I'm watching the movie." With the thrillingly familiar strains emanating from music director Valeree Pieper's splendid orchestra, I agreed completely, and it's fair to say that over the next two-and-three-quarters hours, that feeling almost never waned.

J. Adam Lounsberry and Nathan Bates in You're a Good Man, Charlie BrownAnyone who has spent a significant amount of time in theatre knows that if your first dress rehearsal goes even the least bit well, there's cause for celebration. Having seen the first dress of the Quad City Music Guild's You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown this past Sunday, I can assure the production's participants: There's cause for celebration, because things appeared to go considerably better than "the least bit well."

The comic-strip world of Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts" characters has long delighted children, and the original, 1967 production of the musical You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown - with its cheerful tunes and hummable score - has long been a staple for young performers, having been consistently produced in high schools, middle schools, and even elementary schools across the country.

As Belle, the heroine of the Quad City Music Guild's Beauty & the Beast, Jenny Winn is a complete cartoon, and I mean that in the best way possible. It's generally thrilling when performers deviate from the expectations associated with a well-known character, but playing a role exactly the way an audience expects it to be played has its own rewards, and in Beauty & the Beast, Winn gives such a flawless approximation of a living-and-breathing animated figure that you might find it impossible not to stare at her with a big, goofy grin plastered on your face.