Ideally programmed to take place before Thanksgiving and the holiday season, the virtual Illinois Libraries Present program Holiday Tips & Tricks with Chef Art Smith will find the two-time James Beard Foundation Award winner in online conversation on November 20, this event sponsored by the Rock Island and Silvis Public Libraries inviting viewers to learn about Smith's culinary journey and receive some welcome culinary inspiration.
Boasting more than 25 years of experience dazzling audiences across the Midwest, a homegrown talent will amaze guests of Moline's Sound Conservatory with two presentations of David Casas: An Evening of Magic & Wonder, the November 23 and 24 events filled with mind-bending illusions, masterful sleight-of-hand, and plenty of interactive fun.
On November 24, Dave Meier, curator for the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum in Walcott, Iowa, will share local history, industry connections, innovation, and engineering feats of the last century in Trucking: A Lifeline Across America, a program in the German American Heritage Center's popular "Kaffee und Kuchen" series boasting discussion on trucking in America through the years and the impact of the Interstate Highway System.
You may think blending the exquisite classical beauty of the Nutcracker ballet with the gritty urban energy of hip hop would be like oil and water. Yet The Hip Hop Nutcracker – making its Quad Cities debut at Davenport's Adler Theatre (136 East Third Street) on November 27 – has entertained audiences nationwide since 2013. The beloved holiday story and enchanting music, paired with staggeringly limber breakdancers, will be performed as part of a tour to more than 25 U.S. cities.
In the eagerly awaited return of a seasonal Quad Cities tradition, visitors can experience the wonders of a classic Victorian holiday season in Moline's unique Deere-family homes through 19th Century Christmas, the Butterworth Center's and Deere-Wiman House's annually beloved December 1 event boasting litany of yuletide treats including live music performances, interactive tours, make-and-take activities, refreshments, and, of course, a special visit by Santa Claus.
Just about nothing happened in the first week of veto session in the House and the Senate. The Democratic legislative leaders are still trying to figure out what their members want to do in the wake of Republican President-Elect Donald Trump’s victory and whether that can be done. Whether that action starts in the second and final week of veto session, or in the lame-duck January session or in the regular spring session, is still up in the air as I write this.
Local artist and friend John Bald reached out to me several months ago and said, “Todd, we have to do something about what they are spraying us with in the skies! Have you seen this?” Of course I have seen it, I told John.
Back in 2018, about midway through President Donald Trump’s first term, the Illinois Senate passed a bill that was designed to prevent “the weakening of Illinois environmental and labor regulations in response to a weakening of federal regulations,” according to an Illinois Environmental Council press release.
In its nearly quarter-century of existence, Nahant Marsh in southwest Davenport has worked to grow and improve inside and outside its borders.
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.
On November 20, a beloved animated special will come to delightful theatrical life when the touring production of A Charlie Brown Christmas: Live on Stage lands at Davenport's Adler Theatre, this 90-minute entertainment filled with all the memorable characters, crises, and music that made the television version a cherished holiday perennial.
M: It’s the cast members, in character, telling you to put your cell phones away and all that, which perfectly sets the tone for all the fourth-wall-breaking in Life Sucks.
K: So much fourth-wall breaking. Does the fourth wall even exist here?
If anyone can parody a parody -- along with its early roots, its subsequent wannabes, plus a bunch of random stuff -- it's Calvin Vo and T Green, founders of the theatrical troupe Haus of Ruckus, and their posse of benign troublemakers. They do so spectacularly in Dojo to Go, now running at St. Ambrose University's Studio Theatre, written by the prodigious pair and directed by Vo.
Directed by Dana Skiles, My Son Is Crazy, but Promising boasts 15 actors, and while about half of the characters don’t especially move the plot along, there wasn’t anyone who didn’t bring their “A” game.
A hilarious and endearing tale based on the best-selling book series by Barbara Park, Junie B. Jones in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells is set to delight audiences at Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, the family comedy's November 26 through December 29 run treating family crowds to a show that led River Cities' Reader reviewer Thom White to rave, "I was legitimately laughing throughout the performance."
Armed with a Grammy Award nomination (for 2021's “The In-Between"), platinum and gold record sales, and multiple Top 25 entries on the Billboard Top 200, the alternative-metal and hard-rock outfit In This Moments brings their "The Godmore Tour" to East Moline venue The Rust Belt on November 20, the group also noted for smash songs including “Whore,” “Blood,” and ”Adrenalize” and career streams of more than 1.3 billion to date.
A night of thrilling electronic dance music is guaranteed at Davenport's Redstone Room on November 21, with Snakes and Stars – the new musical project of Michael Travis (The String Cheese Incident, EOTO) and Aaron Johnston (Brazilian Girls, David Byrne's American Utopia) – headlining a pulsating night of EDM with an opening set by the Midwestern sensations of The Tripp Brothers.
Praised by Broadway World as a "marvelous" performer whose vocals deliver "crystal-clear perfection," touring artist John-Mark McGaha brings his concert celebration A Nat King Cole Christmas to Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse on November 21, this festive cocktail of signature songs and yuletide favorites including suich hits as "The Christmas Song,” "Route 66," "L-O-V-E," “Unforgettable," and "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth."
Lauded by Ease Up Mag for their "strong indie pop and rock sound that is seamlessly correlated with the stories told in their songwriting," the touring musicians of The Thing with Feathers headline a November 21 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the magazine adding that the trio is "a band you truly don’t want to miss out on."
With the November 22 concert event at Davenport's Redstone Room presented by Rocktown Entertainment Group, a host of familiar fan favorites by two iconic artists will be delivered in A Tribute to Motown, the night boasting the talents of Alphonse Franklin, offering a tribute to Smokey Robinson, and Rob Willis, crooning compositions by Bobby Womack.
There's a kick in watching actors play their widely recognized “types” so flawlessly, and with such fresh enthusiasm, that these roles feel like ideal distillations of their portrayers' talent and presence. I'm thinking of Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood and Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich … and also, now, Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain.
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, November 14: Discussion of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and Anora, and previews of Red One, A Real Pain, and the Netflix two-fer of Emilia Perez and ... wait for it ... Hot Frosty. The guys are so-o-o-o stoked for that one.
Both the funniest and saddest Cinderella tale you've ever seen, writer/director Sean Baker's Anora is a great movie with some great big problems.
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.
Now playing at area theaters.
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.
Boasting large woodcut prints and charcoal and pastel drawings of a dying willow tree from her yard in Dubuque, the arresting, fascinating exhibition Louise Kames: I Don’t See Anything That’s Not Beautiful – on display November 30 through April 6 – will be showcased in the Gildehaus Gallery of Davenport's Figge Art Museum, the artist focused on creating works that explore the beauty of natural decay, the line between life and death, and what remains after.
Between now and November 30, Dubuque's Voices Studio will host a new and compelling dual exhibition featuring the works of renowned artists Ellen Wagener and Greg Gossel, whose works displayed in separate galleries will deliver a full visual experience that juxtaposes the serene, ethereal landscapes of Wagener with the bold, provocative explorations of pop culture by Gossel.
A wide variety of artworks – thoughtful, arresting, disturbing, even hilarious – by nearly four dozen area artists will be on display at the Quad City Arts Center from October 11 through December 6, with the Rock Island venue presenting a series of fascinating takes on the prompt of the exhibit's title: “It's Fine. Everything Is Fine.”
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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