A Christmas Carol is a familiar tale. Familiar not just to the average English speaker, it is a tale that should be especially familiar to audiences of the Iowa Stage Theater Company (ISTC). Over the years, ISTC has made an annual production of A Christmas Carol a tradition, often repeating actors and crew year to […]
live theater
‘Clarence Darrow’, a play about the storied American lawyer, is coming to five Iowa cities in October
“History repeats itself — that’s one of the things wrong with history,” Clarence Darrow once said. Darrow, who died in 1938 at age 80, understood history, or at least how to make it. The most famous trial lawyer of his era, he mounted eloquent and ingenious defenses for the accused in some of the biggest […]
Theater Review: ‘Clue’ cast ‘fires on all cylinders’ in ‘deliriously funny romp’
In the wake of Barbie’s big summer, adaptations of intellectual properties (IP if you’re in the know) are inescapable. And like any monolith, there are good and bad. For every LEGO Movie, there’s an Emoji Movie. Thankfully, Theatre Cedar Rapids’ Clue is a very silly slice of slapstick to be shared with an audience and […]
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 […]
Form follows function: Creating new theater works in COVID-times
The theater community in eastern Iowa is antsy. In the five months since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered stages across the country, theater artists here — a region that boasts multiple professional theaters, countless community theaters and new eager startups laying claim to their own vibe at a rate of at least one or two a […]

