Once again, and hopefully for good, theatre is back in the Quad Cities, and the Black Box Theatre is dipping its toe into the world of live performances with Dick Tracy: A Live Radio Play. Director Lora Adams started Saturday's performance by describing it as a helping of Chinese Food Theatre: We would be full when we left, but hungry for more theatre soon. While this metaphor made me chuckle, I soon realized just how true it was. This charming foray back into theatre definitely left me eager for more.

Deemed “wildly funny” by the Los Angeles Times and “a madcap condensation that features nonstop laughs” by Variety magazine, the recently updated slapstick The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] marks the long-awaited return to scheduled stage performances for Moline's Spotlight Theatre, with the comedy – running March 19 through 28- described by the Montreal Gazette as “the funniest show you are likely to see in your entire lifetime.”

Deemed “extraordinary” by the London Times and “seriously funny” by the Charleston City Paper, David Lee Nelson's one-man-show Stages will be available for March 5 through 21 viewing in a virtual presentation by Iowa City's Riverside Theatre, the late writer/star's final offering a work that, the Charleston City Paper continues, “gives the audience a glimpse of a man wrestling with his fate, coming to grips with a death sentence, and yet accepting it with humbling joviality.”

Described by the Associated Press as “a madcap mashup of musical styles and lyrics blazing with one-liners,” the Broadway musical comedy First Date enjoys virtual City Circle Theatre Company performances February 26 through 28, this presentation hosted by the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts praised by the Hollywood Reporter for its “genuine wit and musical flair.”