With The Daily Beast hailing the show as "a two-hour explosion of physical comedy, malapropisms, and knockabout satire," the Tony-winning slapstick farce The Play That Goes Wrong enjoys an August 8 through 17 run at Moline's Spotlight Theatre, this crowd favorite sure to demonstrate why the New York Times deemed the stage smash "one of those breakneck exercises in idiocy that make you laugh 'til you cry."

Regarded by many, including New York Times critic Ben Brantley, as potentially the greatest of all American musicals, the legendary, Tony-winning Gypsy enjoys an August 8 through 17 Quad City Music Guild staging at Moline's Prospect Payk Auditorium, the Times' Frank Rich adding that "Gypsy is nothing if not Broadway's own brassy, unlikely answer to King Lear."

A lauded musical in which, according to The Sound on Stage, "the songs hit every band of the emotional spectrum," composer Adam Gwon's Ordinary Days enjoys its Quad Cities debut at Moline's Black Box Theatre from August 8 through 17, StageLeft.nyc adding that the show is a "sweet, quietly extraordinary musical that cleanses the soul, lifts the spirit, and reminds you what you love about New York."

Hailed by The New Yorker as "clever in conceit, alive with humor, surprising in its turns, and terribly haunting by the time the lights go out," playwright Jordan Harrison's science-fiction tale Marjorie Prime makes its debut at Geneseo's Richmond Hill Barn Theatre. Its August 14 through 24 run is sure to demonstrate why the New York Times deemed the stage piece an "elegant, thoughtful, and quietly unsettling play" that "keeps developing in your head, like a photographic negative, long after you have seen it."

Seeing and hearing Countryside Community Theatre's production of Hairspray has nearly stolen my words from me.

A lot of the action follows Aristophanes' original text. The rest is decidedly in the style of Calvin Vo and Tee Green.

Lauded by the New York Times as an "undeniably moving" stage work that "shatters the heart," the immortal tale of horror and hope The Diary of Anne Frank runs at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre August 1 through 10, author Wendy Kesselman's adaptation of Frances Goodrich's and Albert Hackett's Pulitzer Prize-winner hailed by the Associated Press as "a powerful new version that moves the audience to gasps, then tears."

Closing its 2025 summer season with a celebration of one of America's greatest and most beloved entertainers, the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre stages Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver from July 31 through August 10, this transporting stage salute inspiring Chicago Theatre Review to rave, "it’s assured that every theatergoer will fly back home on a 'Rocky Mountain High.'"

Based on the Oscar-winning modern classic that stands as one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, Disney's Frozen enjoys an area debut at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse August 1 through 17, this magical family enchantment a three-time Tony Award nominee hailed by The Guardian for its "theatrical razzmatazz" and "the sense of a real, beating heart in the relationship between the two tortured sisters."

A student-performed version of the Tony Award nominee adapted from one of the most beloved animated musicals of all time, Disney's The Little Mermaid Jr. enjoys an August 2 and 3 run at Maquoketa's Ohnward Fine Arts Center, the theatrical rendition of 1989's Oscar-winning film lauded by Broadway World as "a family-friendly stage musical with great visual punch."

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