Heart on May 17Events

i wireless Center

March through June

 

Shall we commence? If you’re a staff member at Moline’s i wireless Center, the only answer to that question is “Heck, yeah, we shall!” Because in its season featuring two-dozen events open to the public, a full 11 of them are commencements, as students and their families – from May 15 to June 5 – celebrate graduations from area colleges (Augustana, Scott, Black Hawk), universities (St. Ambrose, Western Illinois), and high schools (Rock Island, Pleasant Valley, North Scott, and Davenport North, West, and Central). Consequently, a bunch of you will already be spending time at the i wireless at least once this spring. But I urge you to also consider several additional visits, considering how many springtime engagements will leave patrons with the urge to cheer and throw their hats in the air.

Such enthusiasm will no doubt be in the i wireless air during the final six matches with our professional minor-league ice-hockey team the Quad City Mallards, who close out their season by taking on the Indy Fuel (March 20 and April 3), Evansville IceMen (March 25), Tulsa Oilers (April 1), and Cincinnati Cyclones (April 8 and 9). And the sounds of arena cheers will be accompanied by the thrilling cacophony of humming engines, grinding gears, spinning tires, and literally high-octane excitement in the latest bookings of Monster Jam (April 30 and May 1), the touring motor-sports sensation showcasing recognizable trucks including Max-D and the intimidating, and intimidatingly named, Grave Digger.

Those seeking affirmation from beyond the grave might just find it when TV’s Long Island Medium returns to the Quad Cities in Theresa Caputo Live! The Experience (April 15). While sharing personal stories about her life and explaining her gift, the practicing medium of more than 15 years will deliver healing messages of comfort to audience members, with video displays ensuring that everyone in the venue enjoys an up-close-and-personal experience regardless of seat location.

Meanwhile, if you want to get up close and personal with some of the most legendary names in music, the i wireless should be your go-to destination. Performing locally in his springtime Hits Deep Tour, six-time Grammy Award winner and multi-platinum-selling TobyMac (April 10) will fill the Moline venue with his signature brand of contemporary-Christian hip hop, appearing on the night’s bill alongside Britt Nicole, Colton Dixon, Building 429, Capital Kings, Finding Favour, and Hollyn. Less than a week later, two of the most successful, critically acclaimed bands of all time will bring their Heart & Soul Tour 2.0 to the Quad Cities in a concert with Earth, Wind, & Fire and Chicago (April 16) – the former the recipients of six Grammys, 12 American Music Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; the latter boasting five number-one albums, 21 top-10 singles, and, as of April 8, induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Fellow Hall of Famers and recording-artist siblings Ann and Nancy Wilson will also be rocking the i wireless this spring, as May 17 brings with it the chart-topping chanteuses of Heart, who will thrill fans with a bevy of hits from their four-decade run that will no doubt include “Crazy on You,” “Heartless,” “Barracuda,” and “Magic Man.” You’ll also likely hear “magic man” – albeit in the post-concert rave “That was magic, man!” – after the June 2 concert with Janet Jackson, the pop and R&B icon and Billboard Hot 100 record-holder for most consecutive top-10 hits by a female artist. [April 8 update: the iWireless Center announced the postponement of Jackson's concert to 2017.]

And for i wireless patrons seeking the final frontier in amphitheater entertainment, they’ll find it in the March 22 booking of Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage, a once-in-a-lifetime touring event that finds a live symphony orchestra performing some of the series’ most enduring anthems, accompanied by mutlimedia projections of scenes from Star Trek films and TV episodes. It’s sure to be a dazzling, unforgettable experience for music lovers and sci-fi fans alike. But if you decide to attend the event in Star Trek attire and feel that aforementioned urge to throw your hat in the air, I beg you to think twice about wearing a Hirogen headpiece. Those suckers hurt when they land.

For more on the Moline venue’s springtime schedule, visit iwirelessCenter.com.

 

 

Jennifer Nettles - April 15Events

Adler Theatre

March through May

 

Looking over the incredible lineup of springtime events at Davenport’s Adler Theatre, I was knocked out by how many different genres of music were represented: pop, rock, country, blues, jazz, gospel, classical, show tunes ... and that’s just Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! But while Andrew Lloyd Webber’s and Tim Rice’s beloved biblical musical – being performed in an April 4 Broadway at the Adler presentation – does indeed feature all those styles in one convenient stage package, there are also ample Adler opportunities to enjoy each style separately.

2016’s spring season starts off with a gift for rock fans in March 24’s evening with Breaking Benjamin, the Pennsylvania-based, multi-platinum-selling artists whose recent Dark Before Dawn debuted at number one on Billboard’s Hot 200 album chart, and whose ironically titled single “Failure” proved a smash success, spending eight consecutive weeks at the rock charts’ number-one position. Rock blended with invigorating Americana will be on hand when Grammy-winning Rock & Hall of Famer John Mellencamp brings his Plain Spoken Tour to the Adler on April 5, performing from a four-decade repertoire that boasts such top-five hits as “Jack & Diane,” “Hurts So Good,” “Wild Night,” and “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.” Meanwhile, more Grammy-winning rockers land at the Adler in the May 17 engagement with Halestorm, as lead singer Lizzy Hale and her ensemble thrill the crowd with hits including “Freak Like Me,” “Apocalyptic,” and “Amen,” all three of which reached the number-one spot on Billboard’s mainstream-rock chart.

Blue, or rather blues, will be the signature colors in the Adler’s May 10 concert with Joe Bonamassa, who famously opened for B.B. King at the tender age of 12 and led Classic Rock Magazine to rave: “They’re calling him the future of blues, but they’re wrong. Joe Bonamassa is the present – so fresh and of his time that he almost defines it.” As for the state of female-driven country music, you’ll get a strong sense of its vitality in April 15’s Next Women of Country Tour headlined by Jennifer Nettles, a lead vocalist of Sugarland who has also amassed eight number-one hits and a number-one-album debut for 2014’s That Girl. Nettles will be joined on the Adler stage by ascending stars Brandy Clark, Lindsay Ell, and Tara Thompson. And six days after these gifted women perform, the venue will be taken over by gifted boys – to be precise, gifted Newsboys (April 21), the platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated contemporary-Christian artists whose We Believe ... God’s Not Dead Tour will find them thrilling fans with inspiring numbers from their collective 17 studio albums.

A pair of juniors will also be making music in Davenport this spring. But don’t make the mistake of equating “junior” with “lesser,” given the massive talents of these particular artists: Harry Connick Jr. (May 11), the genre-defying icon whose prodigious abilities have earned him three Grammys, two Emmys, and two Tony nods; and Frank Sinatra Jr. (May 19), whose Sinatra Sings Sinatra Tour finds Ol’ Blue Eyes’ son playing tribute to his dad through stories of Frank’s life, multimedia projections, and, of course, croonings of everything from “New York, New York” to “My Way.” [March 17 update: Mr. Sinatra passed away on March 16 while on tour in Florida.]

The Quad City Symphony Orchestra will certainly have a busy spring at the Adler, as the local musicians have no less than three concert events booked over the course of one month. On April 2, the QCSO caps its 2015-16 season with Masterworks VI: The Resurrection, in which conductor Mark Russell Smith leads Mahler’s massive, moving Symphony No. 2 with soprano Linh Kauffman, mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala, and members of Quad City Choral Arts. (The concert will also be performed at Augustana College’s Centennial Hall on April 3.) April 9 brings with it the family concert The Magical Music of Disney, with the QCSO playing music from the studio’s early classics and modern smashes while animated images are synchronized with the scores. And on the following afternoon, the symphony and its five Quad City Symphony youth ensembles will collaborate for the Side-by-Side Concert (April 10), the first time all of these groups will share their gifts on the very same stage.

More classical music will be heard at the Adler when Ballet Quad Cities delivers two performances of Russian Fairytales (April 30), a two-act blending of the magical Stravinsky ballets Petrushka and The Firebird. Meanwhile, really, really classical music – like, 5,000-year-old classical – will accompany the ethnic and folk dancers of Shen Yun (April 17) in a celebration of Chinese culture replete with heroic tales, ancient legends, animated backdrops, and more than 400 period costumes worn by its cast of 100 world-class performers.

Yet for all of these exhilarating events, don’t fear music overload at the Adler this spring, because a pair of touring artists are arriving to turn your humming into cackling. To be fair, one of them, Rodney Carrington (March 26), is also a bona fide country singer – though it sounds like observational jokes and big laughs are more on the menu given that he’s appearing in his Here Comes the Truth Tour. And on May 1, the Adler will host the eagerly awaited return of handyman humorist Red Green, who famously believes “anything is possible if you use enough duct tape,” and who will chat about his life, his loves, and even his age in his new show titled I’m Not Old, I’m Ripe! That’s what I told my young nephew when he said I was old. Then he bit me.

For more on the Adler’s springtime lineup, visit AdlerTheatre.com.

 

 

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong @ the Redstone Room - April 6Music

The Redstone Room and RIBCO

March and April

 

If you’re like me, this month is the perfect time to think about doing some spring cleaning. If you’re like others, it’s the perfect time to actually do some spring cleaning. And if you’re like staffers at Davenport’s River Music Experience, it’s the perfect time to present some “Spring-Queening.” This celebration of the legendary rockers of Queen will feature Alan Sweet as Freddie Mercury, Bret Dale as Brian May, David Abdo as John Deacon, and Erik Wilson as Roger Taylor in a night that also boasts The Dawn performing a tribute to recently departed icon David Bowie – a March 18 kickoff to exceptional March and April headliners at the Redstone Room and Rock Island Brewing Company.

Over on the Iowa side of the Mississippi, the Redstone Room this spring will be filled with jazz, country, blues, and the unusual sights and sounds of Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, the Baltimore-based funk rockers whose April 6 concert will include an opening set by the Colorado natives of The Magic Beans. Prior to that, however, the venue’s musical magic will take all sorts of different forms.

On March 20, in collaboration with Polyrhythms’ Third Sunday Jazz Workshop & Matinée Series, Davenport will host an evening with The Billy Foster Quartet featuring vocalist Renee Miles-Foster, while a fellow Chicago musician, Toronzo Cannon, will headline a March 25 concert in the new Blues & Roots Series co-sponsored by the River Development Authority, Alligator Records, and the Mississippi Valley Blues Society.

Country artist Hailey Whitters, an Iowa native currently residing in Nashville, brings her singing/songwriting talents to the Redstone Room in a March 31 engagement with opener Shaniah Paig. The following night finds the ensemble of a Yonder Mountain String Band musician taking the stage in April 1’s bluegrass concert with The Jeff Austin Band featuring openers The Last Revel. One-third of the Grammy-winning Nickel Creek, meanwhile, performs locally in April 14’s tour stop with Sean Watkins, a contemporary-folk event preceded by a set with singer/songwriter Anthony D’Amato.

Blues and rock are on tap in April 21’s An Evening with Kim Simmonds & Savoy Brown, in which one of the earliest of British blues bands will perform from a repertoire that dates back to its first single released almost exactly a half-century ago. A musician residing closer to home returns to the Redstone Room on April 23, when Chicago Farmer croons from his catalog of Americana alongside openers Frank F. Sidney’s Western Bandit Volunteers. And with the month also finding room for concerts by Flatfoot 56 (April 8), The David Mayfield Parade (April 15), Minus Six (April 22), and Family Groove Company (April 29), April’s final day brings with it a co-album-release-party with gifted acoustic musicians David G. Smith and Julie Christensen (April 30) that also serves as a fundraiser for the QC Alzheimer Greater Iowa Chapter.

Meanwhile, though its performers are much, much cooler than the Osmonds, RIBCO could advertise its early-to-mid-spring lineup by borrowing the old Donny & Marie adage “I’m a little bit country / I’m a little bit rock ’n’ roll” ... though those lyrics would need to be amended to “I’m a little bit country / I’m a whole lot rock ’n’ roll.”

The country (and country-rock) arrives via March 19’s concert with Brushville, the five-piece Midwestern ensemble that has been energizing crowds ever since its 2012 “Battle for the Saddle” victory in Nashville, and that has shared stages with the likes of Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum, Alan Jackson, Justin Moore, and Brad Paisley. Country-adjacent lands in the form of Carrie Nation & the Speak Easy, the bluegrass and rockabilly musicians performing in a March 25 concert, and Reverend Horton Heat, the Dallas-based psychobilly trio whose April 20 area return features sets by Unknown Hinson, Nashville Pussy, and Lucky Tubbs.

As for RIBCO’s other announced acts, they should leave hard-rockin’ music lovers with a smile that’ll last four weeks long. On March 26, the Rock Island venue delivers a European two-fer with black-metal sets by Finland’s Archgoat and Sweden’s Valkyrja, a night of internationally flavored excitement preceded by openers Hellfire Death Cult and Sept of Memnon. Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Konstantinos Karamitroudis – better known as heavy-metal artist Gus G. – brings his solo tour to Rock Island on April 15, performing with guest musicians Drama Major and Battle Red.

And on April 23, RIBCO presents a night with doom-metal musicians Order of the Owl, Obsidian Sword, Crater, and the night’s headliner Graves at Sea, the Portland-based outfit that will perform from loud-and-proud albums including Documents of Grief and EPs including This Place Is Poison. Which is exactly what my place will be if I don’t get around to that spring cleaning ... .

More information on the Redstone Room’s springtime lineup is available by calling (563)326-1333 or visiting RiverMusicExperience.org, and more on the Rock Island Brewing Company’s spring can be found at (309)793-1999 or RIBCO.com.

 

 

A Behanding in Spokane @ the District Theatre - May 13 through 21Theatre

Comedies and Dramas

March through June

 

Infidelity, murder, sacrilege, severed hands, incessant sloppiness ... . Were you a prudish theatre-goer, you might say that our area’s springtime season of stage comedies and dramas is one of gross indecency. Heck, the season even begins with literal gross indecency – or rather, with Augustana College’s student-produced Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, playwright Moisés Kaufman’s historical drama that runs in the school’s black-box theatre March 18 through 20. But amidst all that theoretical depravity, you’ll also find stinging drama and euphoric comedy, plus a few titles that you can safely bring your kids to without scheduling a post-show trip to the therapist.

Mining killings for giggles are the latest interactive comedies by the improvisational maestros of It’s a Mystery!, with dinner-and-a-death events taking place at Rock Island’s Skellington Manor in Craig Michaels’ and Scott Naumann’s Rock into Murder (March 19, April 15, and May 13) and Patti Flaherty’s Hunt for Murder (April 9 and May 7). Flaherty herself acts opposite James Driscoll, Jenny Winn, and Jonathan Grafft in the District Theatre’s take on Edward Albee’s Tony-lauded dramatic marital comedy Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (April 1 through 16). And the District will follow that production with even darker laughs in Martin McDonagh’s A Behanding in Spokane (May 13 through 21), a Tony-nominated comedy by the author of The Pillowman, In Bruges, and Seven Psychopaths. So you know those laughs are re-e-e-eally dark.

From there, though, things go from lighter to a lot lighter at a couple of area venues. St. Ambrose University follows the student-directed Orphans (March 31 through April 2) – Lyle Kessler’s dramedy about troubled-brother kidnappers – with the Tony-winning high jinks of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off (April 15 through 13), an on-stage and backstage slapstick directed by Daniel Rairdin-Hale. Davenport’s QC Theatre Workshop, meanwhile, will precede the three-man zaniness of director Brent Tubbs’ The Bible: The Complete Word of God [abridged] (April 15 through May 1) with two staged readings in the company’s environmentally themed RiverStages Play Reading Series collaboration with River Action: a Midwest Writing Center presentation of R.L. Richards’ Sylvan Slough (April 8) and, at the Workshop itself, Anton Chekhov’s classic The Cherry Orchard (March 26).

On that note: How did our area get so lucky regarding how much Chekhov – or near-Chekhov – we’re getting this spring? Davenport’s New Ground Theatre opens its 2016 season with director Chris Jansen’s and Tony-nominated playwright Lee Blessing’s debuting Uncle (April 29 through May 8), an updating (of sorts) of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. And that surname also appears in the title of the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre’s late-spring comedy, as Tom Sharkey’s romantic fantasy Amy’s Wish (April 7 through 17), directed by Dana Skiles, will be followed by director Jennifer Kingry’s Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike (June 2 through 12), the Tony-winning comedy of manners by satirist extraordinaire Christopher Durang.

And talk about lucky: We’re also getting two Durangs this spring! Scott Community College and director Kevin Babbitt will present the author’s Baby with the Bathwater (April 22 through 30), the black-comedy riot from 1983 that’s all about a boy called Daisy. A Woman Called Truth (May 13 through 22), meanwhile, might be Bathwater’s polar opposite: a musical drama about abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth that director Fred Harris Jr. will direct for the Playcrafters Barn Theatre.

A grab bag of genres, themes, and presentational styles will no doubt be on-hand in Augustana’s Quad City Playwrights Festival (May 14), the annual collection of staged readings of 10-minute works featuring talk-backs with the casts, directors, and authors. The Clinton Area Showboat Theatre’s summer-stock season springs to life with the ne plus ultra of platonic opposites-attract comedies: Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple (June 2 through 12).

And for the kids, there’ll be another summer-stock kick-off when Mt. Carroll’s Timber Lake Playhouse begins its 2016 season with The Prince & the Pauper (May 10 through 14), a show that opens just two days after the close of Davenport Junior Theatre’s 2015-16 season-ender: director Jessica Sheridan’s student-performed stage adventure The Magical Lamp of Aladdin (April 30 through May 8). If I had my mitts on a genie’s lamp, I think I’d wish for more seasons of stage productions as thrillingly disparate as this one. Or a Bentley. Whichever.

For more on the area’s lineup of comedies and dramas, visit our online Theatre calendar.

 

 

Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat @ the Adler Theare - April 4Theatre

Musicals and Dance

March through June

 

This spring’s roster of area musicals and dance productions starts with Quad City Music Guild’s and director John Weigandt’s My Favorite Year (March 31 through April 3), the Tony Award-winning adaptation of 1982’s film comedy concerning the Golden Age of Television and the frequently blotto star who threatens to make an ass of himself on live TV. Were I asked about my personal favorite year, I might just go ahead and say “2016” – if, that is, our impending summer, fall, and winter theatre seasons wind up as strong and wonderfully varied as spring’s looks to be.

Working chronologically, My Favorite Year will be followed by a musical smash that has historically delighted crowds at every time of year: Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (April 4), Andrew Lloyd Webber’s and Tim Rice’s genre-crossing biblical mash-up that closes the Adler Theatre’s 2015-16 Broadway at the Adler series. Another modern musical classic arrives in the Peoria Civic Center’s touring production of the Tony champ Annie (April 12 and 13), while another youthful heroine, minus the curly red hair, takes over the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse stage in director Kimberly Furness’ storybook adaptation Junie B. Jones: The Musical (April 19 through May 21).

One of the 21st Century’s iconic rock recordings will pulse with theatrical life when the Tony-winning American Idiot (April 22 through May 1) is transformed from a Green Day album into a stage entertainment courtesy of director Jaret Morlan and the Iowa City Community Theatre. We’ll then trade tortured youth for a torturing hairstylist when director and Broadway veteran Jerry Jay Cranford stages an Augustana College rendition of Sweeney Todd (April 29 through May 8), composer Stephen Sondheim’s bloody-great tale of England’s notorious Demon Barber of Fleet Street. And then it’s back to America again – to the official beginnings of America, in fact – for director Pauline Tyer’s and the City Circle Acting Company of Coralville’s 1776 (April 29 through May 8), the historically minded Tony winner for Best Musical that opened in 1969 and ran for 1,217 performances.

Ballet Quad Cities closes April with a pair of Adler Theatre performances of Russian Fairytales (April 30), which find the Quad Cities’ professional dance troupe taking on a pair of Igor Stravinsky ballets: Petrushka, the story of a puppet who comes magically to life, and The Firebird, an ancient fable about the reunion of two long-separated lovers. Meanwhile, lovers of musicals, film comedies, and blends of both are likely eager for the area debut of the Tony-nominated Sister Act: The Musical (May 4 through July 2), the Broadway adaptation of Whoopi Goldberg’s movie smash that Circa ’21 and director Jim Hesselman will no doubt turn into stage magic ... as is their habit. (Don’t groan. Just be thankful I only tossed in one nun-related pun.)

Sondheim makes another off-stage appearance – albeit strictly in his role as lyricist – when composer Jule Styne’s legendary musical Gypsy (Jun 2 through 12) takes residence at Mt. Carroll’s Timber Lake Playhouse, with Momma Rose, Louise, Baby June, and the rest belt show-tune classics such as “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” “If Momma Was Married,” and “Rose’s Turn.” There won’t be vocalized songs, but there will be gorgeous instrumental compositions filling Rock Island’s Lincoln Park when Ballet Quad Cities delivers its annual presentation of dance vignettes in Ballet Under the Stars (June 3 through 5).

And wrapping up our spring’s lineup of a dozen stage-musical and dance presentations is the Peoria Civic Center’s touring production of The Book of Mormon (June 7 through 12). For those who don’t know it, this Trey Parker/Matt Stone/Robert Lopez smash received nine Tony Awards and a Grammy Award, reached number three on the Billboard charts – the first musical in more than four decades to peak that high – and just might be the most lyrically quotable soundtrack of the millennium, given its über-catchy song list that includes “Hello,” “I Believe,” “Turn It Off,” and the priceless “Hakuna Matata” spoof “Hasa Diga Eebowai.” I could tell you the American translation for “hasa diga eebowai,” but my potty mouth in Reader articles already gets me in enough trouble.

For more on the area’s lineup of musicals and dance presentations, visit our online Theatre calendar.

 

See also "What's Happenin': Thursday, March 17, through Wednesday, March 30."

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