Jenny Winn, Christopher Thomas, and Sheri Hess in Into the Woods rehearsal So, fellow fans of the former Brew & View, there's good news and bad news:

The good news is that the building that housed this haven for independent releases (and those who love them) will once again be open for business.

The bad news is that it won't be screening independent movies. Or, for that matter, movies of any kind.

Yet while the hearts of film lovers might break, those of theatre lovers should rejoice, as Derek Bertelsen and Tyson Danner realize a live-entertainment dream with the August 10 unveiling of the Green Room, their new theatrical venue at 1611 Second Avenue in the District of Rock Island.

Peter Soderberg and David Wooten in The Frogs Amidst the laughter that accompanied Saturday night's Lincoln Park presentation of The Frogs, I was especially aware of one particular audience member's vocal enjoyment. He was seated quite a bit away from me, but judging by the timbre, I'd say he was about five or six, and he'd routinely giggle with an involuntary, infectious happiness that made it sound as though he was being tickled. A bunch of us were, actually.

Anything Goes ensemble members There are actors in the Quad City Music Guild's current production of Anything Goes that are behaving like total idiots.

Thank God.

Adam Michael Lewis and Tom Walljasper in Don't Dress for Dinner Nothing about the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's production of Don't Dress for Dinner makes the slightest bit of sense. Including my liking it as much as I did.

You Can't Take It with You ensemble members Thursday's opening-night presentation of You Can't Take It with You at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre was polished, snappily paced, and almost universally well-performed. But attendance was hardly what it should have been for this venerated Kaufman & Hart comedy - I'd venture that less than two-thirds of the seats were filled - and truth be told, it's not hard to figure out why.

Tanner Bollinger, Jenny Guse, Jacqui Pugh, and Zack Powell in Irving Berlin's White Christmas You might think it odd that, for its penultimate summer production, the Timber Lake Playhouse is staging Irving Berlin's White Christmas, thereby celebrating the holiday season a good two or three months before the malls will. But the actual presentation turns out to be stranger still. Not only are you getting White Christmas here, you're getting three or four different White Christmases; the results aren't bad, necessarily, but the show winds up feeling a bit like the Bing Crosby classic as co-directed by Michael Curtiz, Tommy Tune, and Rip Taylor.

Ballet Quad Cities

Founded in 1996, Ballet Quad Cities is a professional dance company. Steve Beirens is the artistic director.

Upcoming productions include :

Ballet Under the Stars, August 17 through 19 at Rock Island's Lincoln Park.

• A ballet of Dracula, presented with Opera Quad Cities' production of Medium October 20 and 21 at the Capitol Theatre in downtown Davenport.

the Seussical ensemble No childless adult should feel the least bit silly about attending the Countryside Community Theatre's madly enjoyable production of Seussical.

But just in case the thought of a family-friendly evening of candy-colored costumes and rhyming couplets gives you pause, know that by missing this production, you'll miss what might stand as the musical-comedy performance of the year. As the Cat in the Hat, Nathan Meyer is giving the sort of fiercely committed, ceaselessly inspired portrayal that feels like the reason God invented musical comedy.

Gryan Woods, Grace Pheiffer, Anna Tunnicliff, and Susan Perrin-Sallak in The Winter's Tale Saturday's Genesius Guild presentation of The Winter's Tale never quite found its tone, but it's hard to be too bothered by that, because I'm not convinced that Shakespeare's play ever finds its tone, either. The bard's work is an unusual, somewhat off-putting blend of high and low comedy, aching tragedy, and pastoral romance, and I can only assume that pulling it off in a way that makes sense requires an extraordinary amount of finesse. Director Patti Flaherty's production didn't display this sort of acumen, yet to its credit, the show was never less than pleasant. Whether The Winter's Tale is meant to be pleasant is another matter entirely.

Spiro Bruskas, Craig Michaels, and Scott Naumann in Flaming Idiots On Friday night, I attended a comedic farce that featured slamming doors, mistaken identities, gunshots, an unhelpful cop, a heavily accented mobster, an attractive woman getting sloppy drunk, and a finale that found characters staring with amazement at a briefcase filled with cash.

And on Saturday, I attended another one.

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