Eddie Staver III[Author's note: The following interview with Eddie Staver III was written for TheCurtainbox.com, the Web site for our area's Curtainbox Theatre Company. I'm proud to say that I'm an ensemble member with the theatrical organization, and along with Staver, am a cast member in the company's September 15 - 25 production of Time Stands Still.]

 

A company member since 2009, Eddie Staver III made his Curtainbox Theatre Company debut as the haunted title character in 2008's Danny & the Deep Blue Sea, and went on to appear as the amoral salesman Moss in 2009's Glengarry Glen Ross, the troubled son Eddie in 2010's Fool for Love, and, later that year, clinical oncology fellow Jason Posner in Wit. And when I mention to people that Staver is returning to the Curtainbox to play James in Time Stands Still - his first role for the company in over a year - the response I get is almost always the same: "Where has he been?"

The Adler Theatre's touring production of The New Mel Brooks Musical Young FrankensteinThere's a common misconception that, once the musical- and comedy-filled summer season is over, our area's theatrical output becomes a lot more demanding. But that's absolutely not true. For example, this autumn brings with it the Western charmer Make Me a Cowboy. And the showtune pastiche Give My Regards! And the fairy-tale spoof Honk! And ... .

Hmm. "Make Me"? "Give My"? "Honk"? That all sounds pretty demanding.

Erika and Christopher Thomas in The Music ManQuad City Music Guild's new production of The Music Man - the Meredith Willson classic running August 5 through 14 - stars husband and wife Christopher and Erika Thomas as romantic leads Harold Hill and Marian Paroo. And just to be clear: Yes, the couple knows how close to nauseatingly adorable it is for them to be playing these roles opposite one another.

"I'm kind of calling this my nursing-home story," says Erika with a laugh. "Like when our grandchildren come to visit, it'll be, 'You know, your grandfather and I were in Music Man once ... !'"

"And they'll be, 'Uh oh ... here comes that Music Man story again ... !'" counters Christopher, also laughing.

Pat Flaherty in King Lear"I think it came from going to church," says area actor Pat Flaherty of his childhood interest in theatre. "Because I'd go to church, and I'd see this guy who was holding everybody's interest through the whole service. It was very dramatic - they'd light the candles and ring the bells and everything - and for a while I thought I wanted to be a priest because of that.

"It turned out I just wanted to be on stage."

Jesus Christ Superstar in rehearsalOdd as it may seem now, there actually was a period in the Harrison Hilltop Theatre's history - a run of 12 shows, to be precise - in which the company didn't produce any musicals whatsoever. Yet after staging a dozen plays between June 2008 and May 2009, co-founders Tristan Tapscott and Chris Walljasper chose to open the theatre's second season with a production of Jonathan Larson's rock musical tick ... tick ... BOOM!

Rosemary Ocar, Kevin Maynard, Nicholas Waldbusser, Don Hazen, and Molly Schmelzer in the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's Don't Talk to the ActorsAdulterous lovers. Women and men in drag. Mistreated orphans. Nuns sniffing glue. Grandmas peddling racy underwear.

But enough about my upcoming birthday party.

These are just a few of the stage sights that audiences will be privy to over the next three months, as our area's theatre venues and companies open, at last count, an intimidating 62 productions between June 2 and August 26. As usual, the summer season will be filled with musicals, comedies, and blends of the two. But we theatre-going masses will also be treated to a number of classical and Shakespearean titles, challenging Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winners, and even - gasp! - the occasional intense drama, for those who aren't afraid to spend a couple hours of their summer, you know, thinking.

Johanna Welzenbach-Hilliard and Donna Weeks rehearse Under the RadarFor the final production in her company's 10th-anniversary season, New Ground Theatre Artistic Director Chris Jansen chose to direct a rather epic piece: the debuting period drama Under the Radar, which features numerous plotlines and changes of locale, and concerns our area's gay scene in the late 1970s, with particular attention paid to the relationship of one long-term gay couple.

Based on that description, it sounds as though Jansen is tackling a Quad Cities-based, pre-AIDS version of Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Yet when, with a good-natured laugh, she says of the mammoth undertaking, "Some idiot wrote 11 characters into it," know that Jansen isn't being derogatory. At least, not toward anyone but herself.

Kimberly Furness[Author's note: The following was written for TheCurtainbox.com, the Web site for our area's Curtainbox Theatre Company, of which I've been a proud member for nearly a year.]

 

Recently, Curtainbox Theatre Company founder Kim Furness and I sat down over a glass of wine - all right, maybe a couple of glasses - to celebrate her company's 10-year anniversary. She had recently taken over the directing position for the Curtainbox's latest production, Speed-the-Plow (in the wake of original helmer Philip W. McKinley's recruitment as new director of Broadway's Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark), and during our conversation, was happy to share her thoughts on the company's history. (The David Mamet comedy Speed-the-Plow - featuring Erin Churchill, Dan Hernandez, and myself - runs at the Village of East Davenport's Village Theatre from April 10 through 23, with preview performances April 8 & 9.)

Arlene MalinowskiNearly everyone who was of TV-viewing age in 1963, it seems, remembers where they were on the day President John F. Kennedy was shot. For writer/performer/instructor Arlene Malinowski, that day is especially memorable, because as she recalls, it was one of the first times that this hearing child of Deaf parents had to act as her parents' translator.

"I'm six, I'm in the first grade," says the Chicago-based Malinowski, "and I remember coming home from school, and they're in a dark living room watching the television, and they're crying. And my father says, 'Tell me what's on the TV,' and my mother says to my father, 'No, no, no, leave her alone - she's a kid.' But I'm like, 'No, I can do this!'

"So I'm listening," she continues, "and the man on TV is using a lot of big words. Words I don't understand, like 'assassinate' and 'motorcade' and 'depository.' I figured out that 'assassinate' was 'killed,' but I couldn't figure out what 'depository' meant. And then I remembered that Daddy deposits money into the bank, so it must mean 'the bank.' So I told my father, 'The president man has been shot, he's dead in his car, and a bank robber killed him.'

"And here's the coda to it: They never [definitively] figured out who shot the president. So I am not necessarily wrong."

Anthony Stratton, Nick Jensen, Kayla Jackson, Andrew Bradford, Michael Kline, and Keaton Connell in ColumbinusFor his first directorial effort at St. Ambrose University, Daniel Rairdin-Hale in April staged the ancient-Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex. This month, however, finds the school's assistant professor of theatre tackling a tragedy that hits much closer to home.

"I remember where I was when Columbine happened," says Rairdin-Hale, referring, of course, to the April 1999 massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School. "It was right between my junior and senior year [at Pleasant Valley High School]. So I got to experience how everything changed. My first three years of high school were one way, and then this happened, and in senior year, everything was different. You couldn't have backpacks, doors were locked, you couldn't leave the building, we had bomb drills ... . It was very strange to be there during that transition.

"I mean, I'm sure there are things that high schools do now," he continues, "where students just assume, 'This is how it's always been.' You know, cameras, metal detectors - whatever. But there was a time before that."

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