Circa ’21 welcomes Sherlock Holmes to the stage

Treating audiences to what DC Theatre Arts called a “bright, shiny, comic entertainment” that’s “full of energy and stamina,” Rock Island’s Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse welcomes 2025 with the hilarious whodunit BASKERVILLE: A SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY.

Making its area debut through March 8, author Ken Ludwig’s cheeky Arthur Conan Doyle adaptation finds five actors portraying more than 40 characters between them, this delightfully tricky stage treat being brought to life by an outstanding team of professional talents.

BASKERVILLE: A SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY will be presented at Circa ’21 through March 8, with performances on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 5:30 p.m. and Wednesday matinées at 1:15 p.m beginning February 19.  Pre-show entertainment featuring the theatre’s waitstaff the Bootleggers also will precede all performances. Ticket prices are $68 for the Friday through Sunday dinner and show productions and $61 for all Wednesday performances.

Reservations are available through the Circa ’21 ticket office. For reservations, contact the theatre at 1828 Third Ave., Rock Island or by calling 309-786-7733 ext. 2.

Audiences should prepare to get their deerstalker caps on, because the play’s afoot in this theatrical delight by Tony-nominated farceur Ludwig, the “Lend Me a Tenor” playwright whose “Murder on the Orient Express” was performed at Circa ’21 last winter.

In transforming Doyle’s beloved Holmes novel “The Hound of the Baskervilles” into a murderously funny adventure, Sherlock is again on the case as the male heirs of the Baskerville line are being dispatched one by one. To find their ingenious killer, Holmes and his devoted assistant Watson must brave the desolate moors before a family curse dooms its newest heir.

As our intrepid investigators try to escape a dizzying web of clues, deceit and characters employing silly accents and disguises, they must determine whether a wild hound prowls the moors of Devonshire, discovering, in the process, just how far from elementary the truth can be.

Directing Circa ’21’s first 2025 presentation is venue veteran Corinne Johnson, the former St. Ambrose University theatre professor who also helmed the theatre’s 2024 Agatha Christie mystery “Murder on the Orient Express” and whose additional area credits have included directing “Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical” and “Disenchanted!” for the venue.

Circa ’21 owner Dennis Hitchcock serves as producer of BASKERVILLE: A SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY, with additional members of Johnson’s creative team including costume designer Bradley Robert Jensen and dialect coach Ron May.

Portraying peerless detective Sherlock Holmes and returning to the Circa ’21 stage for the first time in almost 15 years, is Adam Michael Lewis, a theatre instructor at Western Illinois University whose previous productions for the dinner theatre have included “Empty Nest,” “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas” and “On Golden Pond.” Watson is portrayed by Noah Johnson, a recent castmate in the venue’s presentations of “Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical” and “Junie B. Jones in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells.”

Enacting more than three dozen roles between them, the BASKERVILLE ensemble is composed of Circa ’21 veteran Tristan Layne Tapscott and, in their Quad Cities debuts, Andrew Bower and Gillian Weatherford.

The entire staff of Circa ’21 is thrilled to be presenting the Quad Cities debut of this thrilling and hysterical stage adventure and urges patrons to make reservations quickly for what is sure to be a wintertime smash.

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