On Thursday, I made my third trek in three weeks to the Timber Lake Playhouse – this time to see Jersey Boys, which is about Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons' fascinating rise to fame. The show, boasting music by these early rock-and-roll legends, ran on Broadway from 2005 to 2017, winning four Tonys. I haven't seen the 2014 movie, but even if you have, see this. Seriously.

The Mockingbird on Main keeps on keeping on with its newest production Big Rock Candy Mountain, now playing at the Black Box Theatre. Having been iterated around the Quad Cities several times over the last almost-decade, this production is the most recent of its renditions by writer/director Tristan Tapscott. It’s a quick and fun musical that gets the job done, as well as a pleasant trip to a time long past.

With the New York Times calling it “the kind of unheralded gem that sends people into the streets babbling and bright-eyed with the desire to spread the word,” author Annie Baker's thoughtful comedy Circle Mirror Transformation enjoys an August 18 through 27 staging as part of the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Barn Owl Series, the stage piece also lauded by Variety magazine as “orchestrated with a subtlety and unfailing naturalness that makes the play's small revelations disarming and unexpected.”

Murder for Two, now playing at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, is incredible. It’s fast, frantic, and fun, and it’s also the hardest I’ve laughed in I couldn’t tell you how long. My first draft of this review was simply “Go see this show” copied-and-pasted a few hundred times. In lieu of a lackluster Shining reference, take this instead;: A shining review.