Only a day removed from a red-eye journey from Iowa City to Edinburgh, Scotland, Aaron Pang, as he puts it, is a sleepy baby. Pang and crew did that thing you try to do when traveling; power-through a night-turned-day sans sleep, hoping that your circadian rhythm can catch-up to the change in time zones. But “the time difference is a bitch,” Pang shares.
Theatre
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Review: A brooding demon, total Bedlam and the healthiest opera romance of all time from Des Moines Metro Opera
Des Moines Metro Opera offered an eclectic 53rd season, including beloved classics and lesser known gems. During this month’s opening holiday weekend, audience members were treated to vocal fireworks onstage with three impressive operatic productions.
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Review: A family flails as a 50-year marriage fizzles in ‘Grand Horizons’ from Iowa Stage Theatre Company
The crowd’s perspective of the play shifts to the unfamiliar when the man coyly bends over to reveal his skimpy thong. Don’t get your hopes up; the near-nudity ends there.
The Iowa Stage Theatre Company recently presented Bess Whol’s Grand Horizons at the Stoner Theater in the Des Moines Civic Center from March 14 to March 23, 2025.
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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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What does it mean to be seen? New play ‘Myocardium; Graphite’, staged by Dreamwell, draws the audience into an art class
Myocardium; Graphite, a new work by MFA Playwright, Eli Campbell, offers a poignant and immersive experience that grapples with the complexities of human vulnerability, trauma and connection.
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Review: ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ dissects the ways we disguise our pain
Currently on its 2024-2025 national tour, Dear Evan Hansen, which recently finished a run at Iowa City’s Hancher Auditorium, remains one of the most emotionally stirring productions to emerge from the recent wave of contemporary musicals.
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‘The audience will not be spectators — they will be witnesses’: Helmed by two Black women, UI’s ‘for colored girls…’ is a rare, timely production
Choreopoem. That’s the word author and playwright Ntozake Shange invented to describe her seminal masterpiece, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. The collection of twenty poems about seven African American women characters first came to life in 1974 at The Bacchanel, a lesbian bar near Berkeley, California.
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Review: Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ is raw, visceral and deeply moving
Having read A Streetcar Named Desire three times but never seen the play, I was excited to see it being performed at the Playcrafters’ Barn Theatre in the Quad Cities.
Posted inCentral Iowa Arts & Entertainment
DMPA premieres August Wilson poetry set to dance and jazz with ‘Pieces of My Heart’
Editors’ Pick When playwright August Wilson died in 2005, he left behind more than just a powerful and unparalleled body of work examining the consciousness of Black America. Wilson, who […]
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The Stage: ‘Our Town’ offers outdoor delights at the Brucemore Mansion Amphitheater
The seminal summer staple of outdoor theatre is reaching a major milestone in Eastern Iowa. Classics at Brucemore, performed on the…
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Revival Theatre Company brings princely tale ‘Pippin’ to Cedar Rapids
The Corridor has seen its share of plays about princes on quests during recent years. For the final production of its inaugural season, Revival Theatre Company…
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Shakespeare with a modern twist: Fourth Room Theatre takes on ‘Much Ado About Nothing’
Ever since Joss Whedon’s 2012 film-version of Much Ado About Nothing, theatre groups across the country have jumped at the chance to stage this…
