Even without benefit of a plot synopsis, you may think you know the chief inspiration for Alexander Richardson's new Barely There Theatre stage comedy To Leer at Lear. It's Shakespeare's timeless tragedy King Lear, right? Well, yes. But also no. Because as Richardson states during our recent interview, “The inspiration that's actually been in the back of my head as I was writing it, and that's apparent as we're rehearsing it now, is A Muppet Christmas Carol.”

In our recent phone chat about the new Haus of Ruckus play, it takes Calvin Vo more than a half-hour to drop a bomb that probably should've been dropped in the first five minutes: “We're thinking, with the format we have now, this might be the last time we write Johnny and Fungus.”

Ummm … what?!

If the Internet is to be believed – and when isn't it? – the traditional gift for a ninth anniversary is pottery. But while our theatre-reviewing team and yours truly briefly considered getting y'all lovely handcrafted vases or replicas of the ashtray I made in elementary school (ah, more innocent times …), we instead decided to treat you to sincere, exultant, pithy words of praise in announcing recipients of the Ninth-Annual Reader Tony Awards!

Boasting a company name that suggests mysteries of its own, Ben Gougeon, Alexander Richardson, and the Sound Conservatory are back with Rock Island Tunnel Co.'s The Tapes: An Immersive Revolution. Running October 11 through 26, the production is both similar to and quite different from last winter's The Stacks – partly because, not long after that show closed, the library stacks themselves vanished.