When Neil Simon’s name is on a production, you tend to expect sentimentality and humor, and the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's opening-night performance of Simon's little-known Proposals was certainly humorous.

Although best known for his fast-paced verbal slapsticks, Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning playwright Neil Simon has also exposed a more serious side in such works as Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound, and Lost in Yonkers, and Simon's knack for both comedy and drama will be on display in Playcrafters' March 9 through 18 staging of Proposals, a work the Houston Press called “gentle and warm, like a late August breeze ruffling the leaves.”

With the New York Times calling it “the kind of unheralded gem that sends people into the streets babbling and bright-eyed with the desire to spread the word,” author Annie Baker's thoughtful comedy Circle Mirror Transformation will be staged at Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center March 9 through 11 – the annual presentation for which students from the theatre department’s Play production class were responsible for auditioning, casting, directing, scenic design, lighting and sound design, costume design, and stage management.

Presented at Moline's Black Box Theatre in the style of a radio play complete with live music, sound effects, and actors with scripts in hand, three new episodes of the locally produced podcast All You Care to Eat will be performed by the area troupe Comedy Thingy on February 24 and taped in front of a live “studio” audience.