In 2019, the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art was celebrating its 50th anniversary. It also had been nearly 11 years without a home. The floods of 2008, which wreaked havoc across Iowa, hit Cedar Rapids and Iowa City […]
I’ve never really liked Jane Austen. To be fair, I never read any of her books. I opted to allow the dominant medium of my era — film — to tell me her stories. Maybe I would have felt differently […]
In Riverside Theatre’s upcoming return to Lower City Park (June 17-July 3, free), I will revisit a role I played first in 2019: Henry Plantagenet, who will have graduated from Prince of Wales (Henry IV Part 1) to King of […]
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 on an excerpt from Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel War and […]
Not five minutes into The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess, running in the lush new home of Riverside Theatre, I laugh-snort at something Crystal Marie Stewart says — something I’ll continue to do all night. It is then that I write […]
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 […]
The Little Village February Editors’ Event Pick in Theater: Eden Prairie, 1971, at Riverside Theatre, Iowa City Riverside Theatre is christening its brand-spankin’-new space just off the Ped Mall (119 E College St) with Eden Prairie, 1971, a brand-spankin’-new play […]
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 […]
On March 13, 2020, five days after the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in Iowa, Anna Barker texted UNESCO City of Literature director John Kenyon, with her trademark triple-exclamatory enthusiasm: “Call me call me call me!!! I have an AMAZING quarantine […]
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 […]
Adam Knight’s smile was as bright as the sunny evening sky while we chatted for a few moments ahead of the opening night (July 15) performance of Riverside Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale on the Festival Stage in […]
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 […]
