Not everyone sits at home dreaming of attending an opera. But it might just be time to start. The Machine Opera Company is bringing an exciting new modern opera to […]
Laura Johnson
Posted inEastern Iowa
Crackling connections take center stage in Mirrorbox Theatre’s ‘Private’
Mirrorbox Theatre presents: Private Through May 22, Theatre Cedar Rapids — Grandon, $20 Do you ever stop to consider the connections between personal life, social media, employment and the world […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Natasha, Pierre and Riverside’s sold-out return to musicals
Who needs Bridgerton when you have fantastic live theater just around the corner? Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, (Dave Malloy, 2012) is a high-energy musical based loosely […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Mirrorbox leads audiences to consider their own friendships more deeply in ‘Cycle Play’
The quote “Art disturbs the comfortable and comforts the disturbed” has been attributed to various people in a variety of situations, but it is nowhere more applicable than to Cycle […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Audiences waited two years, but 2022 is the perfect timing for TCR’s ‘Kinky Boots’
After waiting nearly two years to open, Theatre Cedar Rapids began its run of Kinky Boots (score by Cyndi Lauper, book by Harvey Fierstein) to a house of appreciative audience […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Successful fundraising campaign brings Mirrorbox home
With 32 plays presented in 2020 and 19 staged in 2021, Mirrorbox Theatre may be one of the area’s most prolific theaters — and all of those plays were virtual. […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Step into another world with City Circle’s ‘Matilda’
The saying goes that a final dress rehearsal needs to be riddled with dropped lines, missed cues and costume snafus in order for opening night to shine. City Circle Theater […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
With stage magic, a newer text, TCR’s is not your mama’s ‘Cinderella’ (but she’ll still enjoy it!)
This past Friday, Theatre Cedar Rapids reopened its main stage for the first time since COVID-19 hit with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Director Angie Toomsen brings the adapted stage play […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
ICCT’s ‘Doctor Faustus’ offers a chance to pause and think
Not every theater company would undertake a play written in blank verse in the 16th century, a play that is fabled for having driven early audience members into fits of […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Masterful storytelling explores the core of communication in Riverside’s ‘Midnight Your Time’
As both a mother and a daughter, I found Midnight Your Time resonant and meaningful. Riverside Theatre’s current streaming production, Midnight Your Time by Adam Brace, is a one-woman show […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Joy Vandervort-Cobb animates a whole ensemble of characters in Riverside Theatre and PURE Theatre’s ‘No Child …’
Over the past seven months, theater companies in eastern Iowa and elsewhere have reinvented themselves, branching out from traditional spaces onto streaming platforms to keep performance and themselves alive. Starting […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Delicate Rain’ by Deneishia Jacobpito
Deneishia Jacobpito’s story Delicate Rain, released in April of this year, follows the short journey to healing of the main character, Francesca DeLouise (Frank). Frank has spent her life in […]
