Wednesday night's preview performance of the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Squabbles was never funnier than when its two elder characters were engaged in the titular activity. Unfortunately, they didn't squabble as much as the show's title might lead you to believe. Fortunately, however, the parts of author Marshall Karp's play that are low on humor are high on sentiment, and created a far more touching experience than I expected.

One of Joe DePauw's smartest directorial choices for the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's A Turn for the Nurse was to avoid camp. His cast doesn't play the crime farce for laughs and, as a result, may get more of them than they otherwise might've; to be sure, Saturday's audience was offering up laughter aplenty throughout the performance.

I approached Thursday's preview performance of Quad City Music Guild's Grease with preconceived opinions, not the least of which was that Grease is one of the few stage musicals that greatly improved in its transition to film. Not one of the half-dozen or so stage productions of this 1950's-themed high school musical I'd seen convinced me that the show was much good in its theatrical form; at best, I hoped for some notable performances in a musical I still wouldn't like. I didn't expect that great performances from the entire cast would have me re-thinking my entire opinion of Grease. They did.

I arrived at Genesius Guild's Friday-night performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream 10 minutes prior to the start of the show. What would otherwise be adequate arrival time for most of the Guild's performances proved a problem for this one - I could not find a seat. Other than a few spots on the not-comfortable-enough-for-more-than-two-hours bleachers, the seats were filled. With patrons already staking out spots on the surrounding lawn, I was forced to return to my car, grab a lawn chair, and jockey for a position to best view the night's performance.