Appearing in a pair of relaxed, 45-minute public events as a guest in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artists Series, renowned pianist, composer, actress, and author Robin Spielberg hosts respective presentations in Rock Island and Muscatine on November 5 and 7, this lauded Steinway artist and founding member of the Atlantic Theatre Company also a national celebrity artist spokesperson for the American Music Therapy Association.
Coupling the intentional carved marks of 15th-century wood engravings with the bold shapes and composition of early-20th-century expressionist woodcuts, Joseph Lappie's art exhibition Die Hoffnung der Pflanzen: The Hope of Plants will be on display at Davenport's German American Heritage Center November 5 through February 23, delivering a hand-colored contemporary portrayal of personal herbology, or the assumed language of a plant and its individual meaning to a person.
Star-crossed lovers. Palace intrigue. Mistaken identities. Patricide. A dude turning into a donkey. Just another Saturday night in the realm of William Shakespeare. But on the Saturday night of November 9, these and many other Bard-ian tropes will be affectionately spoofed in the return of Shakespeared!, an hour of long-form improvisational comedy taking place in Moline's Spotlight Studio Theatre.
Led by Whispering Souls Paranormal, a family team of investigators based in Rock Island, the German American Heritage Center's November 9 event Geisternacht Night at the Museum invites patrons of the Davenport venue to enjoy a spooky evening of paranormal investigation whether guests are skeptics or full believers.
Continuing its series of popular “Kaffee und Kuchen” programs on November, the German American Heritage Center will present an afternoon of German Printmaking with Joseph Lappie. His print series Die Hoffung der PlaPflanzen, being showcased at the Davenport venue through February 23, couples the intentional carved marks of 15th-century wood engravings with the bold shapes and composition of early-20th-century expressionist woodcuts, the result being a hand-colored contemporary portrayal of personal herbology, or the assumed language of a plant and its individual meaning to a person.
As usual, plenty of false claims have been made during this state legislative election cycle. But the campaign I keep going back to in my own mind is the battle in the 97th House District.
One of the most important legislative debates next year will be about reforming, restructuring, and finding a way to fund Northeast Illinois’ public-transportation system. Statewide taxes could possibly be raised to pay for this, so you should pay attention, no matter where you live.
Perhaps the single most dangerous corrosive in our Republic is the increasing lack of transparency in government. Less transparency enables less accountability. Less accountability fosters less collaborative governance. Less collaborative governance devolves into socioeconomic chaos. Socioeconomic chaos empowers authoritarian tyranny. Where in this downward spiral do you see our American Republic?
After a precedent-setting, seven-year legal battle in federal court, an historic ruling by the United States District Court of the Northern District of California has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take regulatory action to eliminate the “unreasonable risk” to the health of children posed by the practice of water fluoridation
October 1, 2024 marked Julian Assange’s first public remarks about the United States Justice Department’s prosecution since his release from the Belmarsh high-security prison in London.
Delivering what the Denver Post called “a sleighful of gifts” including “a minuet of the familiar and the special” and a “gentle, genial advocacy of the impossible,” the holiday spectacular Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical enjoys a November 6 through December 29 return to Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, this delightful adaptation of the beloved movie classic boasting music and lyrics by The Music Man creator Meredith Willson.
Delivering what the New York Times deemed "the subliminal potency of music, the head-scratching surprise of a modernist poem, and the cockeyed allure of a surrealist painting," Tony-nominated playwright Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice enjoys a November 7 through 10 staging by the University of Dubuque’s Department of Fine and Performing Arts, the Times adding that the genre-spanning show is a "devastatingly lovely – and just plain devastating – theatrical gloss on the Orpheus myth."
A legendary holiday-film perennial and thrilling song-and-dance showcase for Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye will be brought to theatrical life when Quad City Music Guild closes the organization's 2024 season with Irving Berlin's White Christmas, its November 8 through 17 run treating audiences to a Tony-nominated treat featuring timeless Berlin hits in “Blue Skies,” “Happy Holiday,” “Let Me Sing and I'm Happy,” and “I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.”
Closing the venue's 2024 season with a burst of wacky hilarity, Geneseo's Richmond Hill Barn Theatre will stage playwright Tim Kelly's My Son Is Crazy, but Promising from November 14 through 24, with the Brigham Young University Review stating that "Kelly has created a fun, screwball whodunit" boasting an "outlandish plot, amusing complications, and fun characters."
Opening its 2024-25 season of mainstage productions in the Brunner Theatre Center, Rock Island Augustana College will produce one of William Shakespeare's freshest and funniest titles in its November 14 through 17 presentation of The Comedy of Errors, a work that esteemed literary critic Harold Bloom said “reveals Shakespeare's magnificence at the art of comedy” and demonstrated “mastery in action, incipient character, and stagecraft.”
Currently traveling the country in support of their 2024 album It's Getting Late (… and More Songs About Werewolves), and now celebrating their astounding 48th year of professional performance, the garage rockers of The Fleshtones headline a special November 7 concert event at Davenport's Redstone Room, the group's Bandcamp page inviting audiences to "see why they’ve been your favorite band’s favorite band for decades."
Touring in support of their 2024 EP I Am Not Much Help that Music Arena GH deemed "a beautifully chaotic masterpiece" that "a blend of garage rock, glam-bop ballads, and heartfelt lyrics," the indie talents of Hotel Mira headline a November concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the group also praised by The Pentatonic for "the band’s incredible ability to write alt-pop hits infused with raw, introspective lyricism."
With Distorted Sound raving that, in the band's most recent album Swan Song, the musicians "have laid their souls bare and offered us access to the most honest and intimate parts of themselves," the post-hardcore rockers of The Plot in You headline a November 8 concert at Davenport's Capitol Theatre, Rock 'N' Load adding that "this album is everything fans of The Plot In You would have come to expect of the group, while still sounding fresh and refined."
With his 2024 single "This Town's Been Too Good to Us" a gold-certified hit, CMT Music Award winner Dylan Scott headlines a November 8 concert at East Moline's The Rust Belt, the U.K.'s Culture Fix insisting that the artist's 2022 recording Livin' My Best Life "presents all the facets that make Dylan one of country’s strongest rising talents: soaring when tackling high-octane, feel-good country with a sense of charm and swagger, yet managing to deliver a sense of sincere emotional conviction in the album’s quieter, more intimate moments."
Touring in support of her new album Baptized by the Blaze that Turn Up the Amp deemed "a rousing blend of honky-tonk brash-and-sass, by turns invigorating and healing," Americana singer/songwriter India Ramey headlines a November 8 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, No Depression adding that the artist's latest is "a fascinating portrait of a honky-tonk queen who shows the way to having a good time even while expressing her vulnerability."
Hugh Grant is is stunningly threatening in this Beck/Woods horror thriller, his recognizably benign shrugs, cheerful mugging, and self-effacing manner never masking the fact that there is one person in charge of this situation, and it isn't one of the visiting Mormons.
In director Edward Berger's Conclave, both the narrative and the principal characters are hiding secrets that shouldn't be spoiled to those who haven't seen the movie and didn't read novelist Robert Harris' 2016 source material. But one secret about the film absolutely can, and should, be revealed in advance: This thing is an almost ridiculous amount of fun.
Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a work that "makes an exquisite case for the impossibility of caging the heart," the award-winning Austrian drama Great Freedom enjoys a November 7 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum, director/co-writer Sebastian Meise's moving film also praised by The Hollywood Reporter as "a contemplative psychological study of the effects of incarceration, and beyond that, an unconventional love story, tender but unsentimental."
First M. Night Shymalan makes his chanteuse daughter a significant part of his thriller Trap, then Todd Phillips floods his Joker followup with songs, and now this. Is no genre safe from the global Swift-ification?
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, October 31: Discussion of Venom: The Last Dance, Conclave, and Your Monster, and previews of Here, an unasked-for Forrest Gump reunion, and Absolution, another Liam-with-a-Gun thriller. Mike must've been really awful in a past life to deserve this double feature. Happy Halloween!
Formerly known as the German Theological College and Seminary, the University of Dubuque has a strong and vibrant history, and it's one that will be celebrated in a series of arresting and heartwarming photographs, with the exhibition UD: Then & Now on display in the university's Bisignano Art Gallery through November 8.
In a fascinating program held at Davenport's Figge Art Museum on November 14, Celebrating the Lewis Collection: Marsden Hartley & Fellow American Modernists will find Gail R. Scott, director of the Marsden Hartley Legacy Project with Bates College Museum of Art, discussing the pioneering American modernist and the six works by Hartley recently gifted to the Figge by Linda and J. Randolph Lewis.
The whimsical world of Walter Wick has fascinated people of all ages since 1992, when his first children's book series I Spy found its way onto the bookshelves of millions of American households. And through November 17, admirers of the artist can delight to his elaborate images in Walter Wick: Hidden Wonders!, a dazzling collection of dozens of colorful wonders on display at Davenport's Figge Art Museum.
With its creator a noted artist and instructor based in Chicago, the fascinating exhibition Evergreen will be on display at Cornell College's Peter Paul Luce Gallery through November 20, with painter Marina Ross employing the visual symbolism of the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz to explore cultural and personal memory, grief, and performance.
On November 21, patrons of the Figge Art Museum are invited to enjoy a fascinating screening of select NFTs (non-fungible tokens) from visual artist Leo Villareal's series Cosmic Bloom, which is featured in his current Davenport exhibition Interstellar, a series that reflects the ordered randomness found in nature starting with simple geometric forms that evolve into complex, arresting layers.
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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