In the latest program in the German American Heritage Center's popular "Kaffee & Kuchen" series, Dr. Danuta Hutchins will refer to her book Torn Out Memories while sharing her experiences as a child living under the Nazi occupation of Poland and during the Warsaw Uprising, with June 9's The Butterfly Effect: Why Do We Feel Empathy with the Victims of War, Hunger, Terror, & Natural Disasters? finding Hutchins relating her personal trauma to the terrors suffered by the victims of 9/11 attacks.
On June 11 and 12, a trio of gifted, award-winning authors will take place in a pair of virtual conversations hosted by the LeClaire Community Library, with fans of child and young-adult fiction invited to a Tuesday-evening audience with Diane Wilson of the All Iowa Reads selection The Seed Keeper, and a Wednesday-evening online chat with Celia Perez and Samira Ahmed of All Iowa Reads choices Tumble and Hollow Fires.
A Saturday Night Live cast member from 1995 to 1998 who has boasted roles in Half Baked, Zookeeper, and the sitcoms Home Improvement and Kevin Can Wait, comedian Jim Breuer brings his national "Survival with Laughter Tour" to Davenport's Adler Theatre on June 14, the popular standup's numerous talk-show appearances including sets on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
An eagerly awaited pre-summer event complete with food, vendors, local history, games, and entertainment for the entire family, the 2024 Quad City Juneteenth Festival will be held at Davenport's LeClaire Park on June 15, the celebration hosted by the Friends of MLK (FoMLK) in collaboration with the Lincoln Center - TMBC, and held in commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.
Delivering a blend of local history, environmental issues, education, entertainment, and fresh air, Davenport's River Action will again present a series of outdoor presentations in the first month-plus of the annual Channel Cat Talks and Riverine Walks: weekly programs that, from May 28 through June 29, will address such topics as local abolitionist freedom fighters, steamboating, birds of prey, infrastructure, and the Quad City River Bandits.
Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch gave added meaning to the phrase “winning ugly” during last Wednesday’s early-morning hours. I’ve never seen anything like it, so let’s take a look. House members were told to be in their seats by noon on Tuesday after the Senate had easily passed the entire budget package on Sunday.
The World Health Organization's (WHO's) attempted global coup is mere days away. If you ever thought of calling your legislators, now would be an ideal time to express your objection to assigning emergency management to a foreign entity. For everyone's sake, leave politics out of it.
I’m not sure I’ve seen a stranger roll-call than last week’s House vote on Senate Bill 2978. The data privacy bill is an initiative of Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, and he was on the House floor during the debate. The far-right ginned up social-media opposition to the bill by claiming that it would allow non-citizens to vote. More than 1,400 electronic witness slips have so far been filed in opposition.
On May 28, 2023, my wife and I were celebrating our wedding anniversary at our home in Davenport with family and friends when we began to hear police and ambulance sirens racing downtown. News reports soon made it clear that there had been a horrific disaster: 324 Main Street, a 116-year-old, six-story building housing numerous low-income tenants partially collapsed from top to bottom. Given the gravitas of what had transpired in 2019 with the flood wall disaster and in 2023 with 324 Main St. disaster – both of which occurred on (former city administrator) Corrin Spiegel's watch as the top paid city official – compared to the school-age-girl-thin-skinned complaints in the finally released September 2023 demand letter, one could say Spiegel's demand letter is a “nothing burger.”
Take a closer look at the candidates.
Lauded by Entertainment Weekly as "a dizzyingly romantic operetta and a farcical commentary on the fools that love and desire make of us all," legendary composer Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece A Little Night Music opens Quad City Music Guild's summer season from June 7 through 16.
Praised by USA Today as a Broadway hit of "uncynical warmth and charm," the Tony-nominated Tarzan: The Musical swings into Moline's Spotlight Theatre for an area-debut run from June 7 through 16, this theatrical adaptation of Disney's Oscar-winning animated film boasting magical stagecraft and delightful tunes including "Two Worlds," "Strangers Like Me," and 1999's Academy Award champion ""You'll Be In My Heart."
For its season-opening production at Rock Island's Lincoln Park, the Quad Cities' venerated classical-theatre organization Genesius Guild will present the return of Euripides' timeless Greek tragedy Medea from June 8 through 16, the one-act play's director Michael Callahan planning to deliver “an intense 90 minutes that you will, I promise, never forget.”
It took time for some of the performers in director John Donald O'Shea's production at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre to fully inhabit their roles; consequently, I was slow to warm up to the show. But I did. The compelling mystery aspects enter the script late, too, but are ultimately engrossing.
It must be summer again, because I’m back to making the trek upstate to Timber Lake’s cozy playhouse in the woods. And as directed by Jay Berkow, their 2024 opener, The Nerd, is a crowd-pleasing comedy that features strong performances and solid jokes.
Touring in support of their latest recording Soul Grave 2022, a 2.0 version of the 2004 Billboard smash recorded by Cross Canadian Ragweed, that outfit's lead guitarist and his ensemble Cody Canada & the Departed headline a June 6 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the alternative-country and Americana musicians' latest inspiring Rock and Blues Muse to state that "Canada has more music in him now than he ever did and he makes every beat of this set shine."
With the free event sponsored by Northwest Bank & Trust, Davenport's Common Chord is set to jump-start the warm-weather months with a Summer Kickoff Block Party on June 7, the outdoor celebration starting in the venue's courtyard with high-energy performances by local acts Einstein’s Sister, The Crew, and students from the QC Rock Academy.
A Grammy-winning musician whose style, according to All About Jazz, "borrows from the fabric of reggae, blues, jazz and pop to provide a totally enjoyable experience," Terrance Simien and his musical outfit the Zydeco Experience headline a June 7 concert event at Maquoketa's Discovery Park, the bandleader performing with Danny Williams on keyboards, Stan Chambers on bass, Ian Molinaro-Thompson on drums, Michael Christie on trumpet, Revon Andrews on trombone, and 2024 recruit Noah Boshra on saxophone.
Praised by Funkatopia for his “amazingly fluid guitar and great piano work” and “vocal work which he has nailed down to a science,” singer and multi-instrumentalist Marshall Charloff brings his ensemble the Purple xPeRIeNCE to Moline's Vibrant Arena at the MARK on June 8, the touring artists performing the signature stylings of Prince & the Revolution in a special concert free to ticket-holders for that evening's Quad City Steamwheelers game against the Frisco Fighters.
Delivering an intimate evening of music at Moline's historic Butterworth Center followed by a season-closing cocktail reception, the Quad City Symphony Orchestra officially wraps up its 2023-24 season with the June 8 event Up Close with Dave Scholl, which finds the QCSO's principal bass performing alongside noted pianist Mio Nakamura.
Presented as the first of four events in the Figge Art Museum's Free Film at the Figge series, the award-winning 2022 documentary Jimmy in Saigon enjoys a June 6 screening in the Davenport venue's John Deere Auditorium, the work lauded by Film Carnage as "a loving, engaging, and sympathetic story," and by the Chicago Tribune as a documentary that "has the feel of a detective story. It will grab you."
Launched last year by the Azubuike African American Council for the Arts and taking place in various area locales June 6 through 9, the second-annual Pulling Focus African American Film Festival has been designed as a celebration of local film and culture that focuses on enriching the lives of Quad Cities residents, presenting unique film-watching experiences framed through the lens of African American and Black Diasporic voices.
In the familial road-trip dramedy Ezra, Bobby Cannavale plays the leading role of struggling standup comic Max Brandel, and he's mad at everybody. Everybody.
Going to the cineplex or staying in and streaming this weekend? Every Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m. you can listen to Mike Schulz dish on recent movie releases & talk smack about Hollywood celebs on Planet 93.9 FM with the fabulous Dave & Darren in the Morning team of Dave Levora and Darren Pitra. The morning crew previews upcoming releases, too.
Or you can check the Reader Web site and listen to their latest conversation by the warm glow of your electronic device. Never miss a pithy comment from these three scintillating pundits again.
Thursday, June 6: Discussion of Ezra, In a Violent Nature, Summer Camp, and The Great Lillian Hall (new to HBO and Max, not the mis-cited Netflix), previews of Bad Boys: Ride or Die and The Watchers, and a teaser for the 2015 horror flickThe Sand, the trailer for which is currently a big deal online. Easy to see why.
A tradition of 40-plus years that has attracted more than 25,000 people each summer to downtown Iowa City, the Iowa Arts Festival, from June 7 through 9, will showcase a wide array of visual artists from local and national levels, and also feature a beverage garden, a variety of culinary delights, children’s activities, and thrilling live-music performances, including a Saturday-night set with Grammy-winning festival headliner Terrance Simien.
With the exhibit's artist known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials, and technique, as well as for being one of the most famous of the "Mexican muralists," Revolutionary Artist: The Prison Fantasies of David Alfaro Siqueiros will be on display at Davenport's Figge Art Museum through April 9, this lithograph series on loan from the Deere & Company collection for an intimate exhibition on view in the Lewis Gallery.
Held in conjunction with the venue's new exhibit Reckonings & Reconstructions: Southern Photography from the Do Good Fund, Davenport's Figge Art Museum will host a special Southern Photography Exhibition Celebration on June 13, with curator Dr. Jeffrey Richmond-Moll introducing the exhibition and sharing fascinating insights on his curatorial process.
In the latest Musser House Galleries exhibit at the Muscatine Art Center, rides, contests, animals, refreshments, delighted patrons, and more will be showcased in Iowa artist Kurt Ullrich's The Iowa State Fair, a collection of gorgeous and evocative black-and-white images that truly evince the wonder of this annually awaited outdoor tradition.
Representing a survey of the magnificent art and artists within the vast collection of the Do Good Fund, a public charity based in Columbus, Georgia, the traveling exhibition Reckonings & Reconstructions: Southern Photography from The Do Good Fund will be on display at Davenport's Figge Art Museum from June 15 through September 8, its local display also thanks to supporting sponsor The Brian Pasierb Family Foundation, contributing sponsor Carolyn Levine & Leonard Kallio Trust, and media sponsor KLJB FOX 18.
You'll get both the current official narrative challenge and What's Happenin' in the Quad Cities.
(Did you know we publish a new Amy Alkon Advice Goddess, Real Astrology, Red Meat cartoon and RCR Crossword every week?)
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