12 Jul 2005

A Heroic "Pooh," and a Load of Crap: Circa '21's "Winnie the Pooh," and My Verona Productions' "Dingo Boogaloo 2: Taco's Revenge"

By Mike Schulz

Circa '21's Winnie the Pooh at The Rocket through July 23

At the opening-day performance of Winnie the Pooh, the air was already so festive - their doors may be temporarily closed, but the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse is still in business! - that the show was the recipient of enormous goodwill even before it began. Balloons decorated the street, the Rocket Theatre was alive with the noise of excited young uns, the parents seemed in surprisingly good moods ... it was a pretty sweet sight. If you have as much fondness for Circa '21 as I do - and I know some of you do, 'cause I've seen you there ... - the atmosphere alone would have made Winnie the Pooh worthwhile.

 

05 Jul 2005

A Fully Satisfying "Monty": "The Full Monty" at the Timber Lake Playhouse

By Mike Schulz
By the time the amateur male strippers perform their exuberant, baring-it-all finale in the Timber Lake Playhouse's The Full Monty, it might take all your will to not leap from your seat and join them. The high spirits generated by this show are a little overwhelming; with the possible exception of the Clinton Area Showboat's current production of Ruthless, The Full Monty is the best time I've had at the theatre in two months. It's joyous, technically dexterous, thrillingly performed, and, best of all, absolutely fearless. (You're aware of this by the end of the overture, when a bare-assed stripper, hounded by female groupies, races across the stage.)
05 Jul 2005

The New, the Challenging, and the Just Plain Weird: My Verona Productions' "Dingo Boogaloo"

By Mike Schulz

To understand the nature of My Verona Productions' new stage comedy Dingo Boogaloo 2: Taco's Revenge - indeed, to gain insight into My Verona's co-founders, Sean Leary and Tristan Layne Tapscott - one may as well begin with Chickenzilla.

28 Jun 2005

Comic Subversion on the Showboat: "Ruthless" at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre

By Mike Schulz
Black comedy is tough to pull off, and camp is even tougher, so it's no small praise to say that the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre's production of Ruthless is a huge success. This savvy, ballsy musical about a mother-daughter duo who will literally kill to succeed in show biz is so mean and bitchy that it's sure to piss off or offend all the right people, and it's a credit to the comic subversion of the theatre's artistic director, Jay Berkow, that he chose Ruthless as the theatre's Sound of Music follow-up. The show is vicious and borderline inhuman ... and I could barely see my notepad through my tears of laughter.
21 Jun 2005

Genesius Guild's "The Pirates of Penzance" the Right Show for the Right Venue

By Mike Schulz

When you take in a Genesius Guild production at Rock Island's Lincoln Park - when you take in any theatrical performance outdoors - you're at the mercy of the weather, and every once in a while the elements and the production itself will align in a way that feels like perfection.

14 Jun 2005

Quad City Music Guild's "Sugar": Not Quite Wild(er) Enough

By Mike Schulz
If you've seen Some Like It Hot, nothing that happens in the Quad City Music Guild's Sugar will come as a surprise; this 1973 musical-comedy is almost slavishly faithful to the 1959 Billy Wilder film that inspired it. But it does feature a curlicue that makes me giggle: the tap-dancing gangsters.
14 Jun 2005

My Verona's "Closer" a Great Season Opener

By Mike Schulz

Few stage sights are as thrilling as a cast of genuinely hungry actors, especially when they have genuinely meaty material to tear into. My Verona Productions' Closer is a biting, at times painful, piece, yet it's suffused with joy; the actors seem to be relishing the opportunity to verbally claw, scrape, and expose (often self-inflicted) wounds.

14 Jun 2005

Surprise! Clinton's "Sound of Music" Is Full of Surprises

By Mike Schulz
I hate The Sound of Music, but on some level, doesn't everyone? The sugar-coated sensibility, the repetitive songs we know far too well, the Julie Andrews wannabes trilling with relentless cheeriness, the use of Nazis as a pesky, simplistic plot device ... . I know that the show is an assured cash cow for producers, but many of us would be happy for the book and score to disappear until the show's hundredth anniversary in 2059. (I'll be dead by then, right?)
14 Jun 2005

Circa '21's "Oh Mama! No Papa!" Is Fun ... for the Over-70 Set

By Mike Schulz

I've watched numerous comedies at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse over the past decade, and I've never seen one that I thought would be offensive to most 80-year-olds. But until Oh Mama! No Papa!, I'd never seen a comedy that would be offensive to everyone but 80-year-olds.

14 Jun 2005

Ghostlight Continues on the Path to Professionalism

By Jeff Ignatius
Nobody expected Ghostlight Theatre's transition from unpredictable, infrequent troupe to respectable company to be smooth, and it hasn't been. Yet as it approaches the final show of its 2004-5 season - The Will Rogers Follies, running July 21 through 31 at Davenport North High School - Ghostlight can claim a few major accomplishments that count for quite a lot: It's still around, and it's made its budget.

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