I was really looking forward to the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's production of The Full Monty, but that anticipation was nothing compared to how much I was looking forward to watching Friday's audience watch The Full Monty.

Chris Walljasper isn't exactly a new face in area theatre, as the actor (and recent co-founder of Davenport's Harrison Hilltop Theatre) appeared in Genesius Guild's and Opera @ Augustana's Patience last year summer, the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story this past winter, and, most memorably, Carousel and A Year with Frog & Toad for Rock Island's The Green Room.

Yet it's entirely conceivable that audiences for the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Promises, Promises will watch his performance and, on the drive home, ask one another, "Who was that guy?", because Walljasper is delivering the sort of terrifically engaging and endearing musical-comedy turn that makes you wonder why you haven't seen even more of him.

Well, it turns out that crossing my fingers and rubbing my lucky rabbit's foot didn't do a damned bit of good, as the Harrison Hilltop Theatre's A Streetcar Named Desire closed, after a mere four performances, on August 31. (There was a chance that the show - originally scheduled to open August 21, but delayed due to scheduling conflicts - would run one or two more times in September, yet subsequent scheduling conflicts wound up precluding a second weekend.) Thursday's production was so enjoyable, though, and Kimberly Furness, Eddie Staver III, and Stephanie Burrough were so thrillingly good in it, that I'm more than happy to offer a post-mortem; had director Derek Bertelsen's take on Tennessee Williams' classic run another weekend, it's unimaginable that any devotee of the art of acting would've even thought of missing it.

Prior to its appearance on the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's 2008 schedule, I hadn't heard of the Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten comedy Dearly Beloved, so I was reasonably surprised when I arrived for Thursday's opening-night presentation and saw that, barring a handful of seats, the house was completely full. (Did these people know something I didn't?) I took it as a good sign, however, and there was an even more promising one not 60 seconds after the show started, when its first line, its very first, earned a huge, unexpected laugh.