While leaving Friday's performance of Other Desert Cities, a friend told me that he thought it was the best play he'd seen by New Ground Theatre, and I agreed that, if not the best, it is at least among the best productions by the local company. Director David Turley's staging of playwright Jon Robin Baitz's smart, realistic dialogue and intriguing storyline has a tremendous palpability to it, both in the family dynamics of those on-stage and in the tensions and emotions they feel.

Scott Community College's heart-tugging production of playwright Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man is truly touching, with much of the credit for Thursday's emotion going to James Thames' portrayal of the titular character. While director Steve Flanigin does not use makeup to make Thames look like the real Joseph Merrick - who lived during the late 19th Century and who, for still-unknown reason, was deformed with what looked like gargantuan warts on his head, shoulder, torso, legs, and right arm - Thames manages to successfully depict physical abnormality by way of constantly holding his mouth to the right side of his face, even while speaking. Through the course of Merrick's existence from sideshow freak to hospital resident to friend of high-society England, it's Thames' unassuming nature and gentle speech, as filtered through his deformed face, that make his Merrick so heartbreaking and pitiable.

Domingo Rubio left no doubt that his Count Dracula was in charge during Friday's performance of Ballet Quad Cities' Dracula at Moline's Scottish Rite Cathedral. (The production ended its two-night run on Saturday.) From his bat-like entrance - with the dancer slowly flapping his black cape from front to back as he made his way through the darkened auditorium - to his death, Rubio's Dracula never seemed controlled by anyone, and that included choreographer Deanna Carter. Rubio gave the impression that his Dracula wasn't moving because Carter gave him predetermined choreography, but because it was the way he wanted to move.

Ed Villarreal deserves plenty of props for successfully completing a 90-minute monologue without any noticeable flubs - and with a few audience-specific ad libs - during Friday's performance of The Agony & the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the District Theatre. Memorizing and delivering an hour-and-a-half's worth of text is no small feat, let alone delivering it with the inflections and nuance that Villarreal does.