Boasting dialogue that, according to the New York Times, “crackles with bright wit and intelligence” and described as its author's “finest play since the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dinner with Friends,” Tony Award nominee Donald Margulies' Time Stands Still serves as the first studio-theatre production of St. Ambrose University's 2019-20 season, its September 5 through 7 demonstrating why Variety magazine raved, “The play's two hours fly by as if time has stood still and you've barely taken a breath.”

While enjoying my Saturday afternoon at the Timber Lake Playhouse, I believe I realized what the “steel” means in the theatre’s latest production – playwright Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias. Based on Harling’s own personal life experience and the death of his sister, this show has many poignant moments, involving both laughter and tears, as we take a look inside the lives of six eccentric, delicate, but tough-as-steel Southern women in northwest Louisiana.

The Clinton Area Showboat Theatre's Shout! The Mod Musical played to a full boat on Friday. The performances were exhilarating, and the winning score was comprised of 1960s hits. However, the script made that of Mamma Mia! seem Oscar Wildean. Well, you can't have everything. And what you do have here is substantially entertaining.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Literally, in fact, at New Ground Theatre’s production of playwright Micah Schraft's A Dog’s House, when Jock – the dog of Michael (Kyle Taylor) and Eden (Tabitha Oles) – kills the dog new neighbors Robert (Jordan L. Smith) and Nicole (Ashley Hoskins). As Michael and Eden struggle with the moral implications of what to do next, they find out a lot about themselves and their relationship, and Friday's opening-night performance of director Jacque Cohoon’s production was an intimate, emotional experience I wasn’t expecting.