What is the essence of an artist? And how do they make themselves unique and entertaining? In my view, an artist is an extremely creative individual who demonstrates the ability to arouse one’s emotions and tantalize their senses, causing them to feel alive. And that’s exactly what I felt during Thursday’s dress-rehearsal preview of La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas, now playing at the lovely Black Box Theatre in downtown Moline.

Area theatre is back, and a beloved series is serving up some good ol’ Midwestern wholesomeness in The Church Basement Ladies in You Smell Barn at the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse. This musical comedy was simply the perfect way for the venue to reopen in the wake of last year’s COVID-19 restrictions, and my husband and I had the privilege of attending Friday’s opening-night performance. It was fabulous.

An opera legend will celebrated on-stage when Shelley Cooper, Augustana College's Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts, performs her one-woman show La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas at Moline's Black Box Theatre March 28 through 28, the production a loving tribute to an iconic figure that legendary composer Leonard Bernstein called “the Bible of opera.”

Returning with the venue's first mainstage production since area theatres closed again this past November, Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse will treat its guests to familiar characters in a brand-new setting with the March 17 through May 15 run of The Church Basement Ladies in You Smell Barn, the latest offering in this musical-comedy series that originally made its Quad Cities debut in 2007.