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.
Eastern Iowa Arts & Entertainment
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Marion’s Happily Ever After Book Boutique is a one-woman matchmaking operation
I’ve been to my fair share of bookstores, and all have left me with something to remember: a dazzling window display, a cozy nook, a roaming cat. My latest store visit can be summed up by the exclaimed observation of a fellow patron: “It’s a penis!” This plush appendage sat atop a shelf in Happily […]
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Review: ‘Art is survival’ for the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated craftsmen behind this PS1 exhibition
Community members packed the February 7 opening reception of the “Art from the Inside Out” exhibition at PS1 South, giving me the feel-goods. I saw a woman I used to work with and met her mother; I saw friends and met their grandchild. Artists and their families were there, and it was the most class-diverse art show I’ve attended.
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Review: Emanuel Ax and Anthony McGill ooze chemistry in a virtuosic duet at Hancher
This past Saturday world-renowned pianist Emanuel Ax and clarinetist Anthony McGill performed at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City.
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James Tutson is a fool for soul music
For James Tutson, music is a lifelong thing. He told me in a telephone interview that growing up, “We had a 10-person congregation, and I had five siblings and my mom, and we were the whole church choir. From the minute you could talk, you were singing in our family and singing in church, you know, […]
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Review: Riverside ensures you’ll never see the ‘The Illiad’ the same way again with ‘The Cure at Troy,’ a tale of snakes and scruples
Iowa City’s Riverside Theatre is entering the final week of performances for their run of The Cure at Troy, a play featuring a lesser-known character detailed in Homer’s Iliad.
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Review: Twyla Tharp brings 1999’s ‘Diabelli’ back to Hancher as the legendary choreographer celebrates her ‘Diamond Jubilee’
Despite two decades of dance training, most of my context for Twyla Tharp’s Diamond Jubilee at Hancher last Wednesday night was via an undergraduate dance history class on the choreographer and her eponymous company. That she was part of my dance curriculum speaks to how Tharp is one of the most well known names in American modern dance…
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Review: Sophie Mitchell brought CD stacks, Lana vibes, a Mitski cover and her mom to Gabe’s for a joyful album release show
Heading to Gabe’s in Iowa City in what felt like a positively balmy January night (every winter here makes me regret leaving London), I was pleasantly surprised by the early turnout for Sophie Mitchell’s album release show.
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Iowa’s indie theaters have a flurry of David Lynch screenings in store for February
“Believe it or not, the answer is yes, I do have a fondness for David Lynch,” begins Ben Godar, Executive Director of Varsity Cinema in Des Moines. Losing Lynch, who passed away on Jan. 15, 2025, has highlighted just how many people agree with this sentiment.
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Young actors soar in ‘The Lightning Thief,’ a mythic musical for Cedar Valley families
Waterloo Community Playhouse/Black Hawk Children’s Theatre’s newest musical production The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, adapts the popular fantasy series about a teenager who finds out the father he’s never met is one of the Greek gods…
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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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Review: A fading celebrity challenges a criminal president in ICCT’s finely tuned ‘Frost/Nixon’
Iowa City Community Theater (ICCT) premiered its production of Frost/Nixon on Friday night at The James Theater. The play by Peter Morgan – a British playwright probably best-known to Americans as the creator of The Crown – was first staged in London in 2006.
