Director Shelley Cooper, vocal-music director Maureen Holmes, and instrumental-music director Michelle Crouch led the performers, crew, and staff in Augustana's The Threepenny Opera, and I was confident that the theatre and music departments here could pull the show off beautifully. They did, with energy, enthusiasm, and so much talent. The expressive actors here are skilled beyond their years.

Many Ambrosian theatre students’ stories have been guided by Cory Johnson and Kris Eitrheim, which makes it almost fitting that a literary classic marks the duo’s final on-stage chapter at St. Ambrose University (SAU). Little Women: The Musical, Louisa May Alcott’s story as adapted for the stage with a book by Allan Knee, music by Jason Howland, and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein, is not some big and splashy farewell. Rather, this is an extremely well-thought-out presentation showcasing the formidable Johnson/Eitrheim talents one last time before their retirements.

A bona fide musical-theatre classic serves as the final stage production in Augustana College's 2021-22 season at the Brunner Theatre Center, with Shelley Cooper directing and choreographing the May 5 through 8 run of The Threepenny Opera, a work revered for its score that boasts the unforgettable “The Ballad of Mack the Knife” and its legendary collaboration between author Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill.

With Chicago Theatre Review praising its "beautiful, heartfelt score" and "gentle reminder of how it's still important to be loving, kind, and supportive of one another," the musical version of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel Little Women serves as the final stage production in St. Ambrose University's 2021-22 theatre season, the show's April 29 through May 1 also the final presentation to be directed by the university's beloved, retiring professor Corinne Johnson.