With the Chicago Reader deeming the work “a Preston Sturges comedy stranded at an I-94 truck stop” and “a wild, crotch-grabbing snapshot of life at the margins,” sibling authors Clay and Nate Sander's Losers Bracket makes its Quad Cities debut at Moline's Black Box Theatre November 15 through 24, its local run sure to demonstrate why the Chicago Tribune raved, “The play hums with the kind of quirky, blue-collar, sports-loving bravado that made Bleacher Bums a Chicago classic.”

A holiday-themed sequel to the venue's slapstick smash from 2017, A Doublewide, Texas Christmas serves as a season-ending presentation at Geneseo's Richmond Hill Barn Theatre, with the comedy's November 7 through 17 run sure to demonstrate why Theatre Mirror proclaimed, “If you want to spend two hours suspending belief, forgetting your troubles, and just laughing at the silliness, this is the show for you.”

From the moment I entered the QC Theatre Workshop for Friday's opening-night performance of The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, my head was in a different place than ever before – literally, as the stage and the seating had swapped places since my last visit. From the moment the final spotlight died, my head has been in a different place figuratively. Edward Albee's show, which debuted on Broadway in 2002 and won that year's Tony for Best Play, stirred thoughts and ideas that I'm still pondering.

Dance, Billy, dance! And that he did during the Spotlight Theatre’s current production Billy Elliot: The Musical. Friday’s opening-night performance was magical and certainly razzle-dazzled me. Directed by one of my favorite local actors, Adam Sanders, there was never a dull moment; the evening was full of spinning chair stunts, great chassés, pirouettes, tap dancing, and lots of outstanding singing.