Clue: The Musical is the latest production to open in this wonderfully intimate venue in downtown Moline, and speaking candidly, I was blown away by the packed house as audience members loudly chattered away before the opening curtain. It was as if they all had been cooped up in their homes for the last 24 hours, but needed to venture out just to see a classic board game brought to life via a Broadway-esque style musical.

Each of the collective 11 scenes lasts mere minutes and usually employs no more than two actors on-stage at a time, with no more than three actors in any given scene. But the beauty of the script is its poignant, witty, heartbreaking, and hopeful look at the one thing that bonds these characters under the Northern Lights on a bitter Maine night: love.

On the night of August 25, this one spoken line stuck in my head like newly poured concrete – clammy and heavy while slowly thickening in my mind. I can only imagine that most of us have been stuck at some point, but this didn't refer to the everyday kind of stuck. It wasn't about something normal such as being trapped in traffic, or having writer's block, or doing the same workout over and over. No, this question asked in a play referred to an endless hamster wheel of shame and humiliation stigmatized by one poor life choice.

Across the street from my childhood home was an open lot with worn-down dirt spots and paths etched into the grass, shaping a makeshift baseball diamond – like something from the film The Sandlot. I played ball there every summer, all summer, from kindergarten through high school, and getting a new baseball glove was always the best, except when you initially put the glove on your hand and realized it was stiff and awkward.