Let’s start this survey of Iowa’s local theater landscape with a bit of a dramatic flourish: The start of the COVID-19 pandemic was half a decade ago. Apologies if that messes with your tethering to time, but I bring it up for a reason. When looking at the last five years of local theater output, […]
Iowa City theater
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Review: Riverside serves ‘Romeo & Juliet’ straight up for their 40th Free Summer Shakespeare show
The mini Globe Theatre in Iowa City’s Lower City Park reopened grander than ever on Friday, July 13 for the premiere of Riverside’s 40th Free Shakespeare show and 25th season on the festival stage.
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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.
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UI Theatre alum Brian Quijada on staging a ‘reverse border story,’ how it feels when audience members walk out and why new plays are more exciting
Brian Quijada is an Emmy-nominated playwright, actor and composer. He also happens to be a University of Iowa Theatre Arts alumnus, getting his start as an undergrad that ended up double majoring in English and Theatre. Quijada has returned to Iowa City for a visit culminating in a performance with collaborator Nygel D. Robinson on […]
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Chris Okiishi wants to offer an ‘astonishing take’ on cult classic ‘Carrie: The Musical’ in Cedar Rapids
Carrie: The Musical, Theatre Cedar Rapids, Sept. 20–Oct. 13 This article is about two great shows happening in the corridor this season, and it is also a love letter to two theater powerhouses. The impact of Chris Okiishi and Patrick Du Laney on the performing arts in eastern Iowa cannot be overstated. Even before starting […]
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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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Faire play: On the road with a traveling troupe of pirates, bards and jesters
Spring has come around again! That can mean different things to different people; for me, spring signals the return of Renaissance faire season. I have been a member of Pass Four Productions since 2014. We are a troupe of actors who perform short, one-act comedy skits with choreographed stage combat at Ren faires across Iowa […]
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Riverside Theatre offers peek into their future space, launches new capital campaign
In late summer 2017, a building on the Ped Mall owned by the Swisher Trust, home to Union Bar and Revival, went up for auction. Little Village got access to the top floor of the building, derelict and covered in haunting graffiti: demons, clowns, skeletons, and even a bit of apocalyptic street poetry. “No ghosts […]
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Is there anything this cast can’t do? Riverside’s ‘The Comedy of Errors’ full of unsuppressed energy
Angie Toomsen, director of Riverside Theatre’s production of The Comedy of Errors, brilliantly brought together two things that theater historians might compare to orange juice and toothpaste: 1970s country and Shakespeare. Southern drawls mixed with Shakespearean monologues made the show memorable and even more hilarious, as if the bard himself had written the show with […]
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Riverside dives deep and resurfaces with ‘Sonnets for an Old Century’
The last time we spoke, Riverside Theatre producing artistic director Adam Knight impressed upon me his desire to re-imagine the face of professional theater in Iowa. For years, Riverside has been producing intimate, small cast shows with many of the same heavy-hitters: stellar productions, to be sure, but familiar. It would be easy to doubt […]
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Riverside’s ‘Buyer and Cellar’ sets the stage for a fall of fantastic virtual performances
According to the first result that loads on Google (bless you, Wikipedia), a utopia “is an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens.” The hilariously absurd, one-man tale that unfolds in Riverside Theatre’s Buyer and Cellar is just that, a utopia. Starring the sensational Patrick DuLaney and […]
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‘The Winter’s Tale’: Zooming into a summer tradition with a twist
Fans of Riverside Theatre’s annual Free Summer Shakespeare productions can look forward to a ray of light in the dark of this year’s tumult. Like most theaters, Riverside has temporarily shuttered in person performances in the interest of public safety. This necessary decision prevents us from gathering in Lower City Park’s Festival Stage this summer […]
