K: Dolly Parton famously said, “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap.” Likewise, it takes many hours of rehearsal to make a show look humorously under-rehearsed.

M: Ironically, it’s necessary to play a bad actor well.

Director Shelley Cooper, Augustana College's associate professor of theatre arts, and music director and accompanist Rob Elfline, professor of music at Augustana, have engineered another extraordinary production with Ordinary Days.

Quad City Music Guild’s summer season winds down with one of the big American musicals: Gypsy, directed here by Troy Stark, and featuring a score by Jule Styne, book by Arthur Laurents, and lyrics by an early-career Stephen Sondheim. And while there were a few rough spots during Friday’s opening-night performance, there’s still plenty to enjoy and Guild does a fine job of putting this classic piece on its feet.

Let it be known: My family and I are exactly the intended audience for the Timber Lake Playhouse’s current production of Disney's Frozen. We love the material. We love theatre. So in the words of everyone’s favorite animated snowman Olaf, “Put ‘em together, it just makes sense.” The good news? If you’re also a fan, chances are you’ll feel the same way about this particular production.

Julie Funk is both excited and terrified to take on one of the most iconic roles in musical theatre. The passionate 50-year-old Davenport mom is playing the monstrous Mama Rose in Quad City Music Guild's Gypsy, running August 8 through 17 at Moline's Prospect Park Auditorium (1584 34th Avenue).

Hailed by The New Yorker as "clever in conceit, alive with humor, surprising in its turns, and terribly haunting by the time the lights go out," playwright Jordan Harrison's science-fiction tale Marjorie Prime makes its debut at Geneseo's Richmond Hill Barn Theatre. Its August 14 through 24 run is sure to demonstrate why the New York Times deemed the stage piece an "elegant, thoughtful, and quietly unsettling play" that "keeps developing in your head, like a photographic negative, long after you have seen it."

Kitty: Full disclosure: We once dressed as Mary Poppins and Bert for Halloween. We’re very serious about our Poppins lore.

Mischa: But we promise to be absolutely objective in our reactions to this show.

Local Theatre Auditions/Calls for Entry

Updated: Monday, August 4

Reviews by Rochelle Arnold, Jeff Ashcraft, Patricia Baugh-Riechers, Audra Beals, Pamela Briggs, Dee Canfield, Madeline Dudziak, Kim Eastland, Emily Heninger, Heather Herkelman, Mischa Hooker, Kitty Israel, Paula Jolly, Victoria Navarro, Roger Pavey Jr., Alexander Richardson, Mark Ruebling, Mike Schulz, Joy Thompson, Oz Torres, Brent Tubbs, Jill Pearson Walsh, and Thom White.

The horrifying story told in The Diary of Anne Frank is now being lovingly presented at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre, directed by accomplished actor Elle Winchester.

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