Director Michael Brindish’s production is the perfect introduction to this venue; even the Rock Island theatre's seasoned patrons are in for a treat. While this Mamma Mia! felt familiar – here I go again – there were a few tricks up its sleeve, making it, for me, a unique experience.

I must begin with an apology and a confession. Sorry to my British Literature professor in college: I never read Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility, nor did I read her Pride & Prejudice. If you were generous, you could say I skimmed. But it’s okay (at least for me), because the most recent production at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre is so good, it makes me regret being a negligent student.

Lauded by Variety magazine as "a biting bureaucratic satire" that "rings truer than ever," legendary Czech playwright Václav Havel's The Memo serves as the final stage production in Augustana College's 2022-23 season, the dark comedy - running May 11 through 14 - centering on the introduction of a new language that is meant to make work more efficient, but has the exact opposite effect.

Arriving directly from New York and with his latest stage spectacular featuring Dubuque native Rita Harvey, the May 6 performance of Neil Berg's 103 Years of Broadway finds the producer/pianist/composer returning to the University of Dubuque's Heritage Center alongside a cast of stars from history's greatest musicals, with Berg sharing the songs and stories behind the music that helped change the world.