Before the production officially begins and without uttering a single word, Gini Atwell effectively sets the tone for the Prenzie Players' Antigone. On Friday evening, during the ad-libbed pre-show that's a staple of Prenzie productions, Atwell sat at the front of the stage, half-cradling her knees while wearing a far-off look in her eyes and a deep sadness on her face, as though lost in thought on woeful memories or circumstances.

Not long after the play begins, it's made clear that Atwell's expression is due to her character's resignation to her own death. She is passionate during the course of the play - particularly as she attempts to garner her sister's help in burying their brother (who lost his life in battle with their other brother for the throne of Thebes), and as she embraces her fiancé as if it's the last time they'll ever hold each other. But her ability to maintain the cheerlessness at the core of her Antigone is remarkable, creating a palpable pain that's punctuated by her inevitable death.

Five months after its first staging of the bawdy Broadway musical Avenue Q, the District Theatre has brought back its prurient puppets for another round, and with the replacements of just two cast members and minor reworkings made by director Marc Ciemiewicz, this return performance is still enough improved (from an already laudable production) to make the show worth seeing again, if not for the first time.

Playwright Lee Blessing's A Walk in the Woods successfully re-creates a sense of the Reagan-era Cold War conflict between the United States and the then-Soviet Union ... at least according to an older friend of mine who also attended Friday's performance of New Ground Theatre's production. However, my theatre-going companion also agreed with me that the play is reminiscent of the film My Dinner with Andre, famed for simply being a conversation between two people in one setting. And Blessing's story is just that - a series of discussions between a U.S. and Russian diplomat sitting, or sometimes standing near, a park bench. For two hours.

I cannot praise Bryan Tank enough for his take on composer Jonathan Larson's Rent, as the director's concept renders the much-loved Broadway hit an even more cohesive ensemble piece than any production of the musical I've yet seen. Friday's District Theatre performance left me with a renewed love for Larson's material and, in what may be the highest compliment I can give in regard to the emotionality of the presentation, it left my rarely-moved-to-tears partner Matt in tears - twice.