Circa 21 Dinner Playhouse

My parents and I saw "Hairspray" here a few weekends ago. Amazing show, I would highly recommend it to anyway who enjoys musicals.

Now on to the venue....
Tickets are $50 and they include your meal and show. I would love the option to buy a lower price ticket that excludes the buffet.  This is  because the food sub-par. (No need to go into detail, as every other review confirms this).  They include water, coffee, or tea in your ticket price, but not soda, flavored teas, or other drinks. This would have been good to know, as we got totally ripped off on drinks. My father got a teeny tiny soda that he got refilled at least twice. We were charged $2.50 for the soda and every refill!!! I got a flavored tea that was also in that price range! I felt cheated. We had no idea these drinks were not part of the included meal.

The building is really old and smelly. My clothes and hair stunk even after I was home for a good 3 hours after going there.

The chairs are not comfortable. If you were only there for the 2-3 hour show, the discomfort would not be unbearable. HOWEVER, they drag out the meal and pre-show so it becomes a 4+ hour event.

Now, can I please vent about this preshow that they make everyone sit through before the actual play starts....
Torture. Pure TORTURE!  This was probably 45 minutes to an hour of song and dance by the waitstaff.  It felt like it would never end. The choreography was the epitome of cheesy. The performers were far far faaaaaaaar from talented singers or dancers. This sounds so rude, but the whole thing was more embarrassing then entertaining. I would highly suggest scrapping it and getting on with the show that we all paid to see.

I was originally going to give Circa 21 3 stars, but I felt basing a good portion of the review on their food would be unfair. We saw Church Basement Ladies here over Easter, and the show was very good. The performances were great, the writing was OK. It often relied on comedic torture for laughs, and the "we're funny because we're Minnesotan" schtick got tiring. The cast was excellent, and they really could have excelled given better material.

Now for the food.. Whoever mentioned the word cuisine and Circa 21 in the same review might want to get out more often. Please fire your "chef" and start over. I've had better food at grade school cafeterias. When the highlight (and I use the term loosely) of your meal is the soup, there is room for immediate improvement.

This is a neat, unique place to see a show if you ever wind up in Rock Island, IL, but either eat before hand or plan to eat afterward.