Jessica Holzknecht, Rowan Crow, and Keenan Odenkirk in As You Like It; photo courtesy of Augustana Photo Bureau/Nadia Panasky '17Director Jennifer Popple's decision to set her Augustana College production of As You Like It in the 1960s is one of the most appropriate changes in time-setting for theatrical material I've yet witnessed. Such shifts sometimes seem gimmicky, or are better in concept than execution, but here it works, and works well.

Kaitlyn Casanova and Sara Tubbs in Fancy Nancy: The MusicalFrankly, I was surprised to see so many boys in attendance at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Tuesday performance of Fancy Nancy: The Musical. Based on Jane O'Connor's book Fancy Nancy & the Mermaid Ballet, the play would, I thought, appeal more obviously to girls, and prior to the opening of the (proverbial) curtain, I expected the lads populating my seat section to be disappointed. Fortunately, though, there's plenty of content here that appeals to both girls and boys, and judging by the young males' positive reactions, they were delighted by the show - as was I.

David CasasNear the end of our recent interview, I ask David Casas a question that, I think, most people would want to ask a professional magician who spends much of his time making doves appear and disappear: "Has anything really awful ever happened during your act?"

He smiles and replies: "The only thing that's really happened was at one of my first shows. Every time I used to produce a bird, I would always hold them close to me. So I was doing that at one show, and people started laughing, but I didn't know what they were laughing at. So I just kept going with my act, and they kept laughing, and I think I went to grab a silk or something ... . And then I see this big line of bird poop running down my coat.

"And I was like, 'Oh-h-h-h ... now I get it,'" says Casas. "I just shook my head and said, 'That'll happen with birds,' and kept going, you know? And I learned that when I produce the bird, I need to hold it out."

Tristan Tapscott in High FidelityThursday's preview performance of the District Theatre's High Fidelity was, during its first act, a painful experience ... because by intermission, my facial muscles actually hurt from smiling so much. While this musical - composed by Tom Kitt and Amanda Green, with a book by David Lindsay-Abaire - is, in itself, a lot of fun, director James Fairchild and his cast rocked the hell out of it, presenting its story of a record-store owner's most recent breakup (in a long line of them) with infectious energy.

St. Ambrose University's Commedia Dell'arte, which closed its one-weekend run on April 19 *, was like nothing I'd previously seen on a local stage. Director/writer Daniel Rairdin-Hale and composer Dillon Rairdin put together a production that felt like a sequence of sketch-comedy bits and musical numbers, but one linked by a story about a mistaken romance forbidden by two fathers. Servants step in to help the young lovers, and hilarity ensued by way of juggling, dancing, singing, the playing of instruments, and comical gags both aural and physical, with most of the actors performing in mask.

Bryan Woods, Stacy McKean Herrick, Angela Rathman, Rebecca McCorkle, and Martha O'Connell in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare AbridgedThe Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) is a loosely staged, sloppy mess of the comedy by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield. In presenting (almost) every single one of Shakespeare's plays in about an hour and a half plus intermission, director Tom Morrow didn't seem to give his five actors much in the way of blocking, leaving them to frequently mill about or form awkward clumps. Yet it's this unrefined quality that turns out to be the production's chief strength; it's all the more delightful for feeling less like a scripted piece than an improv show.

Sara Bolet and Amanda Dugan in God of CarnageGiven its sharply funny script, Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage is one of the few plays I could see over and over again. And while Scott Community College's presentation of this story about two sets of parents discussing a fight between their young sons doesn't quite live up to the brilliance of Reza's dark comedy, director Kevin Babbitt and his cast and crew still nail the play's most important points. That includes the necessary on-stage puking, which is just one enjoyable element in what ends up a rather humorous production.

Originated in Italy in the 16th Century, the theatrical form commedia dell'arte traditionally finds a group of actors participating in a comedic scenario featuring slapstick conceits called mécanisme. And for his original commedia dell'arte presentation at St. Ambrose University, one fittingly titled Commedia Dell'arte, director Daniel Rairdin-Hale insists that he and his cast have come up with some mécanisme doozies.

Kaitlyn Casanova, Deborah Kennedy, Tom Walljasper, Rachelle Walljasper, and Kay Francis in The Church Basement Ladies in The Last Potluck SupperThe fifth time is apparently the charm for writer Greta Grosch and composer/lyricist Drew Jansen, as the final installment in the Church Basement Ladies series is, for me, the most cohesive and amusing from beginning to end. Primarily, this is because there's a clear plot that ties together the story as, through flashbacks, we learn about the founding of the show's rural-Minnesota church, the initial introduction of the titular ladies to their basement kitchen, and the eventual disbanding of the congregation. This musical is the history of the ladies' Lutheran church in its entirety, a thread that pulls together the proceedings in a beautiful way.

Valeree Pieper, John Weigandt, John Antonin Dieter, Callen Brown, Mark McGinn, David Miller, and Tom Naab in UrinetownUrinetown is one of my top-five-favorite musicals, due to the many songs with memorable, singable melodies by composer/lyricist Mark Hollmann and lyricist Greg Kotis, as well as Kotis' sharply funny, self-referential book. Unfortunately, I was almost immediately disappointed with Quad City Music Guild's production of the show during Wednesday's final dress rehearsal, because the first full minute of director Heather Beck's staging had the ensemble cast frozen in place (and for what actually felt like two to three minutes) during the overture. Yet while my heart sank seeing this dull, uninteresting start to such a creative piece of musical theatre, thankfully, once the overture ended, I wasn't disappointed at any other point during Music Guild's presentation.

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