A four-time Tony Award-winning smash that enjoyed Broadway runs with talents such as Ben Stiller, Edie Falco, Christopher Walken, and Stockard Channing, author John Guare's masterful dark comedy The House of Blue Leaves enjoys a May 17 through 26 run at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre, this wild theatrical ride also lauded by Variety magazine as a stage work that "still sets the bar for smart comic lunacy."

A supremely enjoyable night out on the town, the full experience of the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's latest presentation includes some great food, a blast of a pre-show, and an amazing musical – Jersey Boys to cap things off. With the production helmed by Michael Ingersoll, this is an evening of theatre not to be missed.

One of only few musicals in history to win Tonys, a Grammy, and the Academy Award for Best Picture, the legendary Chicago enjoys a tour stop of Davenport's Adler Theatre in May 15, this second-longest-running show in Broadway history a smash with both audiences and critics, with the New York Times stating, "It has theatrical muscle, the characters are vivid, and its issues are ongoing in our public discourse."

Nearly a year after the tragic collapse of the downtown-Davenport building that housed theatre venue The Mockingbird on Main, the company will fly again with an appropriate title for its return to Moline's Black Box Theatre:To Kill a Mockingbird, playwright Christopher Sergel's adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Harper Lee novel, running May 16 through 26.

The winner of eight 2006 Tony Awards and a work that boasted what Entertainment Weekly deemed "the most gorgeous Broadway score this decade," Spring Awakening enjoys a May 3 through 12 engagement at the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, this latest presentation by the City Circle Theatre Company treating audience to the iconic show that was also the recipient of four Laurence Olivier Awards and a Grammy Award for its original-cast album.

A six-time Tony Award nominee and recipient of the 1988 Laurence Olivier Award for Play of the Year, the lauded Broadway hit Our Country's Good enjoys an area-premiere staging at Rock Island's Augustana College from May 9 through 12, this theatrically adventurous drama adapted from the Thomas Keneally novel The Playmaker, and hailed by the New York Times for delivering “the redemptive power of theatrical make-believe."

Praised by DC Theater Arts as "a genuine joy to watch," the family entertainment Junie B. Jones: The Musical opens the 2024 season at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse with a 10-performance run from May 7 through 11, the outlet adding that the characters in this Barbara Park adaptation "say the silliest things and die on the hills of the most meaningless opinions, and in doing so, bring genuine belly laughs to the adults in the room."

Just a few performances in and I think it’s safe to say that the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse has a hit on its hands.

Local Theatre Auditions/Calls for Entry

Updated: Tuesday, May 7

Reviews by Rochelle Arnold, Jeff Ashcraft, Patricia Baugh-Riechers, Audra Beals, Pamela Briggs, Dee Canfield, Madeline Dudziak, Kim Eastland, Emily Heninger, Heather Herkelman, Paula Jolly, Victoria Navarro, Roger Pavey Jr., Alexander Richardson, Mark Ruebling, Mike Schulz, Joy Thompson, Oz Torres, Brent Tubbs, Jill Pearson Walsh, and Thom White.

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