Praised by DC Theater Arts as "a genuine joy to watch," the family entertainment Junie B. Jones: The Musical opens the 2024 season at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse with a 10-performance run from May 7 through 11, the outlet adding that the characters in this Barbara Park adaptation "say the silliest things and die on the hills of the most meaningless opinions, and in doing so, bring genuine belly laughs to the adults in the room."

A trio of chilling, humorous, and entirely surprising tales by history's master mystery writer will be told at Moline's Black Box Theatre when the venue houses its latest series of live "radio" plays, the April 26 through May 4 production of Murder in the Studio treating audiences to three mesmerizing works by the legendary Agatha Christie.

A wonderfully funny and moving solo performance designed to make audiences question how preconceived notions about disability can blur the truth, writer/actor Aaron Pang's autobiographical Herein Lies the Truth enjoys its world-premiere staging at Iowa City's Riverside Theatre April 18 through 28, its author a University of Iowa MFA nonfiction candidate who will relate the story of how an accident changed the trajectory of his life.

As faithful theatre-goers have proved their devotion to Church Basement Ladies (and its many offspring) since 2007, the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse has resurrected it for the third time. At Thursday's preview night, I saw everything they had made, and behold – it was very good. Yea, those lutefisk-loving Lutherans on the lowest level of the Lord's House have returned.