Praised by Chicago Theatre Review as an "enthralling" play "that audiences who like their entertainment spiced with controversy and seasoned with today’s headlines will absolutely enjoy," author Eleanor Burgess' The Niceties runs at Iowa City's Riverside Theatre March 11 through 27, the work lauded by the New York Times as “a bristling, provocative debate play about race and privilege in the United States, and it begs to be argued with.”

Winner of two 2008 Tony Awards and the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy of 2007, author Patrick Barlow's slapstick thriller The 39 Steps enjoys a March 10 through 13 run at Rock Island's Augustana College, the show's creative team and its four-person cast sure to demonstrate why the New York Times called this Alfred Hitchcock celebration/spoof an “indomitably funny” comedy of “virtuosic clowning.”

Lauded by the Cincinnati Enquirer as "a sassy, hold-on-to-your-seats theatrical adventure" as well as "a play that is wonderfully wild and raucous," Lauren Gunderson's The Revolutionists enjoys a March 3 through 12 area debut at Moline's Black Box Theatre, the author's acclaimed comedy praised by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as "an astoundingly accomplished show" that's "ingeniously conceived and delivered."

One of the best-loved adventures in world literature enjoys a brand-new stage version when Davenport's Mockingbird on Main presents its March 4 through 12 run of Around the World in 80 Days, a two-actor take on Jules Verne's 1872 novel that has been adapted numerous times for the stage, radio, video games, and film, with its 1956 movie version the winner of five Academy Awards including Best Picture.