The Playcrafters Barn Theatre has kept us in suspense for months since postponing Witness for the Prosecution in March due to cast illnesses. Now the play is on its feet at last, with most of the original cast.

Based on the beloved Janet Letnes Martin and Suzann Nelson book Growing Up Lutheran and an ever-popular stage entertainment for nearly 20 years, Church Basement Ladies makes an eagerly awaited return to Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse, its September 8 through 17 run sure to demonstrate why Broadway World called the experience “a completely fun evening” that's “really, really funny.”

Fans of T Green, Calvin Vo, and their uniquely riotous theatre and comedy troupe Haus of Ruckus are invited to see where it all began, and where it's going next, when the Black Box Theatre hosts a two-night reprise of HoR's stage debut “Jacques”alope on August 25 and 26, offering a one-hour version of this hysterical 2021 work that heads to the Elgin Fringe Festival next month.

Praised by The Guardian as “perfectly crafted” and “beautifully scripted,” the wildly entertaining Agatha Christie mystery Witness for the Prosecution enjoys a September 1 through 4 staging at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre following the forced delay of its originally scheduled run this past March.

The Playcrafters Barn Theatre's current production Circle Mirror Transformation sounds très à l'avant-garde. However, though it's unconventionally staged, it's one of the most authentic theatrical slices of life I've ever tucked into.

Author Joe DiPietro's Over The River & Through the Woods is the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's newest offering, an easy-to-watch comedy full of heart and Italian charm.

On Thursday, I made my third trek in three weeks to the Timber Lake Playhouse – this time to see Jersey Boys, which is about Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons' fascinating rise to fame. The show, boasting music by these early rock-and-roll legends, ran on Broadway from 2005 to 2017, winning four Tonys. I haven't seen the 2014 movie, but even if you have, see this. Seriously.

The Mockingbird on Main keeps on keeping on with its newest production Big Rock Candy Mountain, now playing at the Black Box Theatre. Having been iterated around the Quad Cities several times over the last almost-decade, this production is the most recent of its renditions by writer/director Tristan Tapscott. It’s a quick and fun musical that gets the job done, as well as a pleasant trip to a time long past.

Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall of a difficult conversation? Jenny Lind Presents P.T. Barnum gives you that delicious opportunity.

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 enjoys an August 18 through 27 staging as part of the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Barn Owl Series, the stage piece also lauded by Variety magazine as “orchestrated with a subtlety and unfailing naturalness that makes the play's small revelations disarming and unexpected.”

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