Before now, I wasn’t familiar with the 1992 Tony award winner for best play, Dancing at Lughnasa, or its playwright Brian Friel, who has been called “Ireland’s Chekhov.” I also must admit that I’ve attended Coralville’s Center for the Performing Arts and its resident theater company, City Circle’s productions, far less than some of the […]
Saunia Powell
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Theater Review: ‘The Roommate’ at Riverside Theatre
The Roommate was penned by one of the most produced playwrights in the country right now, Jen Silverman, who received an MFA in playwriting at the University of Iowa. The show takes place in Iowa City and, for the first time now, is being staged here Though Silverman’s lived all over the world, Iowa must […]
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Raise a glass, brave the cold and face your fears for Riverside’s ‘The Weir’
Winding my way through the Ped Mall to Riverside Theatre, for opening night of Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s The Weir, I was glad I chose that day to crack open my big tub of winter sweaters. I was alone because my housemates weren’t free, and I hugged my warm sweater around my ribs against the […]
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Crooked Path Theatre to bring its off-beat productions to Prairie Lights, The James this fall
It can be hard to keep up with the absolute explosion of theater happening in the Corridor. Talent and passion keep sprouting in this fertile Iowan soil, and “so much theater” is an incredibly delightful (and coveted) problem for any town to have. Not new, but positively blossoming this fall is one company you may […]
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Riverside Theatre’s haunting production adds new ghosts to their adopted historical theater home
Eden Prairie, 1971 is not only Riverside Theatre’s first show in their newly renovated space on the Ped Mall, but — as a part of the National New Play Network’s Rolling World Premiere — Riverside is the first theater to fully produce the newest work from playwright Mat Smart (who also wrote the final play […]
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Consent is sexy, even when the sex is fake. Just ask Iowa intimacy director Carrie Pozdol
When Carrie Pozdol stands in front of the cast of Theatre Cedar Rapids’ winter musical, Kinky Boots, she wears a T-shirt that reads “make it less weird.” Because that is just what she is there to do. Though she is an accomplished actor and director in her own right, Pozdol is at this rehearsal in […]
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‘Feast.’ at Riverside is Megan Gogerty at her most visceral and compelling
Somewhere, I read a likening of Feast. to Game of Thrones — which I thought sounded ridiculous. How could a one-woman, live stage show approximate the visual awe of flying dragons, the vast expanse of bloody battle scenes, the echo of hallowed throne rooms? But as usual, I turned out to be the unimaginative fool. You see, I was envisioning
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A new documentary highlights Holocaust writers and the ‘sacred memory’ they recorded
This Jan. 27, FilmScene will take part in a global screening event (one of two in Iowa) to remember the victims of the Holocaust. Connecting our community with the International Day of Commemoration, FilmScene will show the documentary ‘Who Will Write Our History’ and Agudas Achim’s Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz will moderate a panel discussion
