Grandma LeeAt one point during my recent (and rather terse) phone interview with comedienne Grandma Lee, the performer explains her interest in stand-up by saying, "You gotta do somethin' you love. I'm 74 years old, but I'm not ready for the rocking chair."

It would be understandable if you responded to those statements with, "Aw-w-w, how cute!" But with her voice pitched just a tad higher than Bea Arthur's, and with her Web-site introduction providing a memorable image of the comic with a beer and a don't-piss-me-off deadpan, this 74-year-old is hardly your everyday, adorable, cookie-baking granny. (On Lee's MySpace profile, "Drink/Smoke" is followed by "Yes/Yes.")

Jake Lyon and Iona Newell in Romeo and Juliest in the 21st Century For choreographers, inspiration can sometimes come from a story, or a theme, or a series of dance moves. For Ballet Quad Cities' Margaret Huling, who makes her professional choreographic debut with the upcoming Configurations, it came from Tchaikovsky - specifically, the First Movement of the composer's Piano Trio in A Minor, Opus 50.

"I was kind of fighting with myself over what I wanted to do," says Huling, "and I kept coming back to the First Movement. It's music that really inspires me."

Yet choreographic inspiration can also come from the inspiration of others, as Ballet Quad Cities' Associate Director Courtney Lyon discovered in the course of re-staging original choreographer Johanne Jakhelln's Romeo & Juliet in the 21st Century.

Vicki Lawrence as Thelma HarperFor more than 30 years, Emmy-winning performer Vicki Lawrence has been best known for her signature character of Thelma "Mama" Harper, the snippy, drawling, and incredibly lovable matriarch she played opposite Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, and Tim Conway on the long-running variety series The Carol Burnett Show. She subsequently revived the role for seven seasons on the sitcom Mama's Family, and both shows - to say nothing of the role itself - have proven so enduringly popular that Lawrence has a pretty fair idea of what age group Mama most appeals to nowadays: All of them.

"She's really never been off the air since she went on the air," says Lawrence. "I mean, [Mama's Family] has run and run in reruns like the little Energizer Bunny. So the demographic of my audience is just incredible. I mean, it can be 90-year-old men and it can be 20-year-old college kids."

On February 12, this comedic Energizer Bunny - and the Emmy-winning star who plays her - will perform at Bettendorf's Quad-Cities Waterfront Convention Center in Vicki Lawrence & Mama: A Two-Woman Show, and during our recent phone interview, Lawrence discussed Thelma Harper's ceaseless popularity, the influence of late co-star Korman, and the abandonment of Lawrence's youthful dream of one day marrying a rich dentist.

Eddie Staver III and Andrew Harvey in True WestThe Harrison Hilltop Theatre's opening-night production of True West, Sam Shepard's savage sibling-rivalry comedy, was an almost ridiculous amount of fun. Yet I'm hesitant about describing how much fun it was, because it's doubtful - if not impossible - that subsequent audiences will be witness to the astounding, downright magical blend of accident and inventive improvisation that accompanied Thursday's presentation. Unless, that is, actor Andrew Harvey is again able to pull off that bit with the spoon. And actor Eddie Staver III is again able to make the slice of bread stick to the wall. And the cuckoo clock is repaired.

Eliza Bockstahler and Liz Stigler in The Learned LadiesSet in 17th Century France, Augustana College's production of the Molière comedy The Learned Ladies takes place in the salon of a Paris manor, and among the first things you notice about Adam Parboosingh's scenic design are the stacks of books standing five feet high from the floor. It's actually impossible not to notice them, as the (prop) books have been painted in a variety of bright colors that make them resemble oversize, rectangular Skittles, or perhaps the reading material for Belle's library in Disney's Beauty & the Beast. They're certainly eye-catching, but there's no way anyone could mistake them for, you know, real books, and The Learned Ladies itself turns out to be a lot like them - deliberately artificial, kind of amusing, and, unfortunately, pretty much divorced from real-world experience.

the No Budget TV logoC.J. Crawford, creator of the local YouTube series No Budget TV, has a lot of people to thank for his sketch comedy's burgeoning popularity: co-writer and collaborator Joe Lee; the friends and musicians who participate without pay; the 100-plus subscribers to the series' channel.

But whether she knows it or not, there's one other person to whom Crawford owes a debt of gratitude: Miley Cyrus.

Justin Droegemueller, Amberly Rosen, and Buddy Olson in Ring of FireFriday's sensational opening-night presentation of Ring of Fire, the Johnny Cash tribute currently playing at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, was the beneficiary of an awful lot of goodwill before the production even started, and very little of it actually had to do with Johnny Cash.

Don Hazen and Dee Canfield in The MousetrapIf you haven't yet attended a production of the show, Agatha Christie's murder mystery The Mousetrap - which has been running in London's West End for more than 56 years now - is definitely worth a look-see. Boasting ripe British caricatures and the author's signature brand of mordant wit, this clever, funny play is one of Christie's most enjoyably constructed contraptions.

If, however, you have seen The Mousetrap before, you'll still find plenty to enjoy in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's current presentation of the piece ... even if the most enjoyable aspects of director Tristan Layne Tapscott's production are ones I can't get into here (at least not without plastering SPOILER ALERT at the top of every paragraph).

Cara Crumbley, Tyson Danner, Sarah Ulloa, and Steve Quartell in Songs for a New WorldThe current production of the musical revue Songs for a New World features a winning, frequently exemplary quartet and some excellent design ... and, in all honesty, I doubt I'd have enjoyed this Green Room Theatre presentation nearly as much as I did had it actually been performed at the Green Room Theatre.

Mark L. Lingenfelter in The Santaland DiariesI love David Sedaris' writing, but on those rare occasions when I've heard the author read from his works on National Public Radio, I can only listen to him for a few minutes before feeling compelled to change the station. It's not that his high, reedy voice is unpleasant, exactly. But the caustic self-deprecation and derision that can make his stories so wickedly funny strike me as whiny and ungainly when Sedaris himself vocalizes them, and when he indulges in sentiment, his attempts at honest emotion ring hollow. (His "heartfelt" moments don't sound noticeably different from his sardonic diatribes.) This isn't a huge failing - Sedaris, after all, is a writer, not a performer - yet I still find that a little of him, vocally, goes a long way.

Pages