Jonathan Spector’s 2025 Tony Award-winning Eureka Day, with its sharp humor and painfully familiar questions about privilege, progressivism and public health, has found a lively and incisive staging in Iowa City. Under the direction of Kathleen Johnson, Riverside Theatre’s production embraces the play’s contradictions with a mix of warmth and unease — a balance that, […]
K. Margaret Smith
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Review: The Acting Company stages August Wilson’s ‘Two Trains Running’ — set in a 1969 diner — with cinematic precision
The Acting Company’s recent production of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, presented by Hancher Auditorium in collaboration with Riverside and the Englert Theatre and performed on the latter’s stage March 28 and 29, is a solid and heartfelt rendition of one of Wilson’s most meditative plays.
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Review: Dreamwell’s ‘Design for Living’ is a tangled comedic tale
Noël Coward’s Design for Living is a play that demands a deft balance of wit, tension and vulnerability — qualities that are central to an exploration of love, freedom and emotional tangles. Dreamwell’s recent production, directed by Will Asmus, certainly attempts to bring Coward’s dark comedy to life, but the results are, at times, uneven, leaving the audience to question whether the fault lies with the production or the material itself.
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Review: The road to Hell runs through Hancher for ‘Hadestown,’ a grim but crackling musical tragedy
A haunting hymn to love, sacrifice and the inescapable grip of fate, Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown arrived at Hancher Auditorium with all the mythic grandness one would expect from a Tony Award-winning musical — though the production occasionally wrestled with the very myth it sought to reimagine. From the moment the orchestra’s brooding, blues-infused tones seeped into the […]
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What does it mean to be seen? New play ‘Myocardium; Graphite’, staged by Dreamwell, draws the audience into an art class
Myocardium; Graphite, a new work by MFA Playwright, Eli Campbell, offers a poignant and immersive experience that grapples with the complexities of human vulnerability, trauma and connection.
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Review: ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ dissects the ways we disguise our pain
Currently on its 2024-2025 national tour, Dear Evan Hansen, which recently finished a run at Iowa City’s Hancher Auditorium, remains one of the most emotionally stirring productions to emerge from the recent wave of contemporary musicals.
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Review: You won’t be borden at ICCT’s ‘Lizzie the Musical,’ a rock-horror show rooted in history
Calling all true crime fans… Lizzie the Musical is a rock-infused retelling of the infamous Lizzie Borden case, in which Lizzie is accused of brutally murdering her father and stepmother in 1892. The show explores the events leading up to the murders, focusing on Lizzie’s strained family life, her oppressive circumstances and her rebellious spirit. With […]
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Review: Riverside Theatre’s ‘POTUS’ is a smart, chaotic, wig-tastic political farce starring seven women
Closing out the political chapter of Riverside Theatre’s 2024-2025 season, following Derrick Wang’s opera Scala/Ginsburg, is Oregonian playwright Selina Fillinger’s POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. A fast-paced political farce set in the White House, the play follows seven women working behind the scenes to manage a […]
