The Theater Year in Review
1. All is Calm. The Black Box Theater, Moline, Illinois. The English and German soldiers decide that they are not going to let World War I get in the way of their Christmas. It's the Christmas Armistice of 1914. And they decide to put down their arms and honor tradition. The German soldiers engage the British in a game of football (soccer). They exchange candy, sweets, and alcoholic beverages. A German gives up his good cigars. It is a truly special moment, because it probably honestly buys at least one of them twenty four more precious hours of life. After Christmas, everything will go back to combat. But tradition holds. It wasn't just the brilliant performances and the beautiful singing that the cast did. Though they did great. I had chills the second Kirsten V. Myers started singing an Irish Christmas carol at the very top of the show. But there were some life references for me that had absolutely nothing to do with the plot of combat infantrymen for the Kaiser and the Royal Army. There were unforeseen parallels to me personally, apart from these two opposing armies deciding that the world was big enough for both of them to share the same patch of turf and celebrate Christmas in 1914. It was the fact that the song "Est Ist Ein Rose' Entsprugen" was in there. I sang that song at Augustana College while in Collegiate Chorale, on our trip to the Jenny Lind Chapel my sophomore year. I decided to relearn it during my last year at Lewistown High School, hoping to try to sing to Luise, who was in my 4th hour Spanish 1, a foreign exchange student from Germany. I sang that to her at the Spanish Club picnic on the last day of school. She was my last goodbye hug before I left Lewistown. Then came "Keep the Home Fires Burning." That one was sung by Rori at the Rockridge Showchoir concert in the fall of 2023. And she was my first hug upon my arrival at Rockridge. It all comes full circle. The peace they found together on the battlefield itself wasn't brokered by heads of state or advisors. They just decided Christmas was too important to sacrifice with a continued day of mortar and artillery. This show was a masterpiece.
2. Life Sucks- Playcrafter's Barn Theater, Moline, Illinois. A show that was about a family in a house, a professor, and some friends. This play is roughly based on Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, the adaptation by Aaron Posner (Stupid F%$ing Bird was his adaptation of The Seagull). Like that show, this production impressed upon me how very different people's ideas of happiness can be from one another. And because everyone's not like-minded, they seek out their own streams, that ultimately lead to waterfalls if they're not careful. Yes, I'm quoting a hit TLC song from 1995. This show deals with heartache, longing, ideation of happiness, ideation of ending it all, and is equal parts deadpan and empathetic. Madison Duling really did a great job with the direction on this one.
3. Newsies- Quad City Music Guild. Look, for context's sake, I was in the middle of working on the August show. It was an escape from Fiddler on the Roof's Anatevka, where I was playing a Jewish scholar and son of the rabbi whose whole life was unraveling with the Russian Pograms, and mind you, having to deal with the inner-demons shouting "am I good enough? Am I in over my head?" It was an oasis and an exhiliarating visit to New York, 1899, where newsboys and newsgirls were taking their fight against the powers that be to the streets. This came with rousing numbers like "Seize the Day," "The World Will Know," "Carrying the Banner," and "King of New York." I went back to Fiddler on the Roof rehearsal absolutely exhiliarated from Newsies.
4. Annie- Something wonderful happened at Annie. I got my Christmas spirit back. I had been struggling with it! It was the sincerity that Sloan Utz brought to the role of Annie, the plucky eleven year old curly red-headed orphan who needed a father, and got one in Oliver Warbucks. One thing I pick up on with each subsequent viewing of Annie is how genuinely lonely of a man Warbucks is. But it's by his own device! He's put his business and his empire first for his whole life, and now he realizes he has only himself for whom he has been providing. The people whom surround him are staff! The closest confidante he has is Grace Farrell, and he's too engrossed in his work to realize she likes him. (I thought of the scene in the movie where Annie confides to Warbucks that Grace thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and Warbucks is quietly moved by the remark). The cast really gelled in this show, and seemed to be having a wonderful time!
5. Jane Eyre, The Black Box Theater. What a show! Similar to Annie, Jane Eyre finds herself alone in the world, and raised as a foster child by a family that prefers their bio-daughter. But she eventually does find love with a slightly older man, who nonetheless harbors a secret. I appreciated the compassion with which the cast approached this 19th Century Tale. Kira and Joe had such tremendously good chemistry. Edy Myers played two completely different characters, one an ailing sister who wanted to make sure that Jane would be okay in the world without her, the other role a foster sibling who was vain and uppish. I loved watching that transition.
6. The Wizard of Oz, Rockridge High School - I just came off doing The Wizard of Oz at Music Guild, as did a number of the cast members, namely the Myers siblings. This was a lot of fun. Again, Edy had a different character all together, Dorothy Gale. And maybe I have a little bias putting in the show at the school where I currently teach. But maybe it was the outstretched hand, the warmth, the decency of the drama club that drew me to this. I loved watching Holly, Payton, and Ross as the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, making their way with Dorothy to Oz, all of them having their own unique vested interest in meeting the Wizard. A brain, a heart, the nerve, home in Kansas. The Jitterbug dance, led by Rori, looked as professional and polished as it was at Music Guild! My one regret about this show is I never did get to sing Toto music to Toto the dog.
7. La Boheme, Opera Quad Cities- Wow, just wow. A couple of starving artists befriend a sick woman. I noticed this was a metaphor for Mark, Roger, and Mimi in Rent. Hey, wait a minute, La Boheme is the source material for Rent! It was a really good show. The singers gave me goosebumps. Props to Chelsea Crumbleholme for getting the children's chorus in full harmony with the second language singing. I remember the tenor arias from the male lead who was in love with the Mimi character were exquisite. This really felt like a performance at the Met or the Lyric Opera of Chicago. There was that level of talent.
8. A Little Night Music, Quad City Music Guild- I couldn't find my program for this one. A Little Night Music is a more lighthearted Stephen Sondheim. I'm not complaining. There was plenty of intrigue. There's an actress simultaneously carrying on a fling with a Count and a lawyer in Sweden. The lawyer's married to an eighteen year old girl, but he had been married to the actress. He's got a grown son who has strong feelings for his stepmother, because let's face it, he probably liked her around the same time as his dad did. The Count's wife and the Lawyer's wife go with the count and the Lawyer on this weekend getaway at the Actress' mother's estate, there's a lot of ribald humor, and we see that jealousy can go a long way in rekindling affection. This show was my new find of 2024.
9. Back to the '80's, Lewistown High School- I again have a little bit of bias. Like at Rockridge, Lewistown High School's drama club was a home away from home for me. And it was definitely a homecoming to go back down to beloved Lewistown and see this show in the Shirley Shannon Auditorium. It was a treat. The male lead has a crush on a girl, but she likes another guy, but the two males in this love triangle are running against each other for class president. One of them gives a speech to the student body where he raps, and it becomes obvious this is a popularity contest more than anything. But oh, the great needle drops from '80's tunes! The cast really threw themselves into this one. It's been exciting watching Brennan Grove and Leilah Wilcox come of age, both appearing on the stage since junior high!
10. The Addams Family, Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse. I wasn't really in the Halloween spirit, all that much, when we went to see The Addams Family with my dad for his birthday in October. But the cast, playing Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Wednesday, Pugsley, and Wednesday's new boyfriend really made for an excellent show. I loved the ghosts from the graveyard of generations of Addams past who served as sort of a Greek chorus. I wound up putting down the two books I had brought with me to read between dinner and the show, and really got engaged in this one. I minded Halloween a little bit less than I ordinarily do because of Addams Family.
Special mention-
Fiddler on the Roof -I was in Fiddler on the Roof in August at Quad City Music Guild. Like with Meet Me in St. Louis, Peter Pan, and Oklahoma, I got to tackle some complex dance moves that I had never done before. Maybe I had some adaptive equipment. But that's okay! It was sort of a formative moment for me, doing the bottle dance that I watched many times before with my throat in my mouth, hoping not to hear the sound of glass breaking. But enough about me. Look at Joe Urbaitis and Penny O'Connor, doing just a spectacular job of playing Tevye and Golde. And the daughters! Sydney, Keira, Wrigley, Isla, and Reese, they really behaved as if they were sisters!
The Sunshine Boys- What a treat it was to share the stage with Pat Flaherty and Kendall Burnett as Willy and Al. I enjoyed watching them act as though they hated each other, all the while knowing what good friends they were offstage. I looked forward to Tim Burrow coming to the crescendo of his plea for his Uncle Willy to come back to the table and negotiate to be in that TV special to do his vaudeville comedy sketch The Doctor Will See You Now just one more time. And the supporting cast I got to work with held up well. It was a lot of fun, a lot of badly needed laughs in a very busy semester of school. The comic timing never waned.
Honorable Mentions:
Zombie Prom- Camanche High School and Clinton High School
Chicago the Musical- Bettendorf High School
Anastasia- Spotlight Theater, Moline
Suzette Who Set to Sea- Davenport Junior Theater
Fiddler on the Roof- Havana High School
Anastasia- Riverdale High School, Port Byron, IL
Kinky Boots- Quad City Music Guild, Moline, IL
In the Heights- Countryside Community Theater, Eldridge, IA
In the Heights- The Marriott Theater, Lincolnshire, IL
White Christmas- Quad City Music Guild
Exit Laughing- Richmond Hill Players, Geneseo, Illinois
The Money in Uncle George's Suitcase- Richmond Hill Players, Geneseo, IL
My Son is Crazy, But Promising - Richmond Hill Players, Geneseo, IL
Evita- Spotlight Theater, Moline, IL
A Streetcar Named Desire, Playcrafter's Barn Theater, Moline, IL
Harvey, Playcrafter's Barn Theater, Moline, IL
Other Special Mention:
Rockridge High School Showchoir, Spring and Fall shows, 2024
2. Life Sucks- Playcrafter's Barn Theater, Moline, Illinois. A show that was about a family in a house, a professor, and some friends. This play is roughly based on Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, the adaptation by Aaron Posner (Stupid F%$ing Bird was his adaptation of The Seagull). Like that show, this production impressed upon me how very different people's ideas of happiness can be from one another. And because everyone's not like-minded, they seek out their own streams, that ultimately lead to waterfalls if they're not careful. Yes, I'm quoting a hit TLC song from 1995. This show deals with heartache, longing, ideation of happiness, ideation of ending it all, and is equal parts deadpan and empathetic. Madison Duling really did a great job with the direction on this one.
3. Newsies- Quad City Music Guild. Look, for context's sake, I was in the middle of working on the August show. It was an escape from Fiddler on the Roof's Anatevka, where I was playing a Jewish scholar and son of the rabbi whose whole life was unraveling with the Russian Pograms, and mind you, having to deal with the inner-demons shouting "am I good enough? Am I in over my head?" It was an oasis and an exhiliarating visit to New York, 1899, where newsboys and newsgirls were taking their fight against the powers that be to the streets. This came with rousing numbers like "Seize the Day," "The World Will Know," "Carrying the Banner," and "King of New York." I went back to Fiddler on the Roof rehearsal absolutely exhiliarated from Newsies.
4. Annie- Something wonderful happened at Annie. I got my Christmas spirit back. I had been struggling with it! It was the sincerity that Sloan Utz brought to the role of Annie, the plucky eleven year old curly red-headed orphan who needed a father, and got one in Oliver Warbucks. One thing I pick up on with each subsequent viewing of Annie is how genuinely lonely of a man Warbucks is. But it's by his own device! He's put his business and his empire first for his whole life, and now he realizes he has only himself for whom he has been providing. The people whom surround him are staff! The closest confidante he has is Grace Farrell, and he's too engrossed in his work to realize she likes him. (I thought of the scene in the movie where Annie confides to Warbucks that Grace thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and Warbucks is quietly moved by the remark). The cast really gelled in this show, and seemed to be having a wonderful time!
5. Jane Eyre, The Black Box Theater. What a show! Similar to Annie, Jane Eyre finds herself alone in the world, and raised as a foster child by a family that prefers their bio-daughter. But she eventually does find love with a slightly older man, who nonetheless harbors a secret. I appreciated the compassion with which the cast approached this 19th Century Tale. Kira and Joe had such tremendously good chemistry. Edy Myers played two completely different characters, one an ailing sister who wanted to make sure that Jane would be okay in the world without her, the other role a foster sibling who was vain and uppish. I loved watching that transition.
6. The Wizard of Oz, Rockridge High School - I just came off doing The Wizard of Oz at Music Guild, as did a number of the cast members, namely the Myers siblings. This was a lot of fun. Again, Edy had a different character all together, Dorothy Gale. And maybe I have a little bias putting in the show at the school where I currently teach. But maybe it was the outstretched hand, the warmth, the decency of the drama club that drew me to this. I loved watching Holly, Payton, and Ross as the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, making their way with Dorothy to Oz, all of them having their own unique vested interest in meeting the Wizard. A brain, a heart, the nerve, home in Kansas. The Jitterbug dance, led by Rori, looked as professional and polished as it was at Music Guild! My one regret about this show is I never did get to sing Toto music to Toto the dog.
7. La Boheme, Opera Quad Cities- Wow, just wow. A couple of starving artists befriend a sick woman. I noticed this was a metaphor for Mark, Roger, and Mimi in Rent. Hey, wait a minute, La Boheme is the source material for Rent! It was a really good show. The singers gave me goosebumps. Props to Chelsea Crumbleholme for getting the children's chorus in full harmony with the second language singing. I remember the tenor arias from the male lead who was in love with the Mimi character were exquisite. This really felt like a performance at the Met or the Lyric Opera of Chicago. There was that level of talent.
8. A Little Night Music, Quad City Music Guild- I couldn't find my program for this one. A Little Night Music is a more lighthearted Stephen Sondheim. I'm not complaining. There was plenty of intrigue. There's an actress simultaneously carrying on a fling with a Count and a lawyer in Sweden. The lawyer's married to an eighteen year old girl, but he had been married to the actress. He's got a grown son who has strong feelings for his stepmother, because let's face it, he probably liked her around the same time as his dad did. The Count's wife and the Lawyer's wife go with the count and the Lawyer on this weekend getaway at the Actress' mother's estate, there's a lot of ribald humor, and we see that jealousy can go a long way in rekindling affection. This show was my new find of 2024.
9. Back to the '80's, Lewistown High School- I again have a little bit of bias. Like at Rockridge, Lewistown High School's drama club was a home away from home for me. And it was definitely a homecoming to go back down to beloved Lewistown and see this show in the Shirley Shannon Auditorium. It was a treat. The male lead has a crush on a girl, but she likes another guy, but the two males in this love triangle are running against each other for class president. One of them gives a speech to the student body where he raps, and it becomes obvious this is a popularity contest more than anything. But oh, the great needle drops from '80's tunes! The cast really threw themselves into this one. It's been exciting watching Brennan Grove and Leilah Wilcox come of age, both appearing on the stage since junior high!
10. The Addams Family, Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse. I wasn't really in the Halloween spirit, all that much, when we went to see The Addams Family with my dad for his birthday in October. But the cast, playing Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Wednesday, Pugsley, and Wednesday's new boyfriend really made for an excellent show. I loved the ghosts from the graveyard of generations of Addams past who served as sort of a Greek chorus. I wound up putting down the two books I had brought with me to read between dinner and the show, and really got engaged in this one. I minded Halloween a little bit less than I ordinarily do because of Addams Family.
Special mention-
Fiddler on the Roof -I was in Fiddler on the Roof in August at Quad City Music Guild. Like with Meet Me in St. Louis, Peter Pan, and Oklahoma, I got to tackle some complex dance moves that I had never done before. Maybe I had some adaptive equipment. But that's okay! It was sort of a formative moment for me, doing the bottle dance that I watched many times before with my throat in my mouth, hoping not to hear the sound of glass breaking. But enough about me. Look at Joe Urbaitis and Penny O'Connor, doing just a spectacular job of playing Tevye and Golde. And the daughters! Sydney, Keira, Wrigley, Isla, and Reese, they really behaved as if they were sisters!
The Sunshine Boys- What a treat it was to share the stage with Pat Flaherty and Kendall Burnett as Willy and Al. I enjoyed watching them act as though they hated each other, all the while knowing what good friends they were offstage. I looked forward to Tim Burrow coming to the crescendo of his plea for his Uncle Willy to come back to the table and negotiate to be in that TV special to do his vaudeville comedy sketch The Doctor Will See You Now just one more time. And the supporting cast I got to work with held up well. It was a lot of fun, a lot of badly needed laughs in a very busy semester of school. The comic timing never waned.
Honorable Mentions:
Zombie Prom- Camanche High School and Clinton High School
Chicago the Musical- Bettendorf High School
Anastasia- Spotlight Theater, Moline
Suzette Who Set to Sea- Davenport Junior Theater
Fiddler on the Roof- Havana High School
Anastasia- Riverdale High School, Port Byron, IL
Kinky Boots- Quad City Music Guild, Moline, IL
In the Heights- Countryside Community Theater, Eldridge, IA
In the Heights- The Marriott Theater, Lincolnshire, IL
White Christmas- Quad City Music Guild
Exit Laughing- Richmond Hill Players, Geneseo, Illinois
The Money in Uncle George's Suitcase- Richmond Hill Players, Geneseo, IL
My Son is Crazy, But Promising - Richmond Hill Players, Geneseo, IL
Evita- Spotlight Theater, Moline, IL
A Streetcar Named Desire, Playcrafter's Barn Theater, Moline, IL
Harvey, Playcrafter's Barn Theater, Moline, IL
Other Special Mention:
Rockridge High School Showchoir, Spring and Fall shows, 2024