Harmony France as Patsy Cline

As I watched the opening-night production of the Timber Lake Playhouse’s Always … Patsy Cline, I kept thinking of the word “harmony.” Thinking about musical harmony certainly was appropriate, as this was, after all, a stage musical. Then I reflected on how harmonies can be calming and tranquil or dissonant and disparate. Yet I still hadn’t been able to place why “harmony” kept going through my mind until it hit me that what I was seeing, hearing, and experiencing was true balance – an interweaving of two very different stories that were connected in the nearly perfect parallel of two actresses' performances. “Yes!”, I thought. “Harmony!”

Brandon Fillette, Stephen Horst, Chris Wren, Tristan Tapscott, Paige Salter, Tom Walljasper, and Morgan McDowell in Million Dollar Quartet

As the saying goes: A picture is worth a thousand words. But could a creative team spin a tale based on that picture and create a nostalgic narrative worth more than words? In the case of Million Dollar Quartet: You betcha!

Beau Gusaas, Craig Cohoon, Josh Weilenga, Mary Dammad, Jordan Smith, Jo Vasquez, Austin Winters, and Alexa Florence in This Side Up

Whenever I see a box marked with an arrow and the phrase “This Side Up,” the words strike me as almost poetic in their simple and straightforward instruction. If only life came with such clear signage! It would sure make living easy. But if that box was heavy and turned topsy-turvy with seemingly no way to right it … . What then?

This is the allegory pursued in New Ground Theatre’s latest production aptly titled This Side Up, whose world premiere I attended on August 26. University of Iowa graduate Kit Grassi, who wrote the work, told our opening-night audience that he drew inspiration from his own experiences and those of some friends but then “blew them up 200 percent,” and that having previously written short stories, this is was first produced play.

Susan Perrin-Sallak, Brant Peitersen, and Mike Schulz in Inheritors

“The word 'theatre' comes from the Greeks. It means 'the seeing place.' It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.” – Stella Adler

The QC Theatre Workshop's latest production, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (and Davenport native) Susan Glaspell's Inheritors, is rightly the place to look for one's truth in life, and to understand views on a diverse archive of social situations.

Victor Angelo and Joe LoGiudice in The Fantasticks

The Fantasticks, the 1960 musical with a score by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics and book by Tom Jones, is a love story with a twist, and the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre production that I saw on August 11 offered some sweet moments propped against a score I did not particularly care for. Its central idea and story, however, I loved.

Kieran McCabe and Melissa Weyn in Gaslight

It was a dark and stormy night … . No, seriously – it really was a dark and stormy night on August 11, which, fortunately, enhanced the eeriness and prolonged the tension of the opening night for the Timber Lake Playhouse's final production of its summer season.

Hillary Pieper-Erb, Joel Kolander, and Troy Stark in Children of Eden

When walking into Quad City Music Guild’s production of Children of Eden on August 7, I had no idea what sort of beautiful music my ears were about to be treated to. The story I was familiar with. Composer Stephen Schwartz's score, however, was all new to me, and director Bill Marsoun has assembled a fantastic cast with which to tell this biblical story of the Earth's creation.

Christian Klepac and Jami Witt in The Glass Menagerie

Dining alone in a restaurant before attending the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre's opening-night production, I couldn’t help but hear a mother-and-daughter conversation – or rather, confrontation – at the next table. The mother was insisting that her child (who I'm guessing was about eight) put her long, loose hair into a ponytail so it wouldn’t fall into her face while eating. The strong-willed girl refused. The mother kept insisting, and eventually tried pulling the girl's hair back with a hair tie, with her daughter squirming and shaking it loose. This battle of wills went on for five excruciating minutes, but I had to smile as I thought, “This little drama is a microcosm of the play I'm about to see.”

Ensemble members in The Birds

What this says about the state of America I don’t know ... or maybe don’t want to know. But for the first time since I started attending Genesius Guild’s season-closing comedies more than a decade ago, director/adapter Don Wooten’s political jabs and jokes – here in service of Aristophanes’ The Birds – were less ridiculous, much less ridiculous, than current, real-world politics. I may have left Friday’s opening-night performance wishing it were more biting, but in retrospect, in this particular year, playing it safe may have been the smartest way to go.

Ensemble members in Titanic

(SPOILER ALERT! The following may reveal details of the Timber Lake Playhouse's current production of the musical Titanic. Readers are advised to cease reading if they don't want to know how the story ends.)

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