One of the most popular and successful children's-book authors of all time – along with many of his beloved animal, bird, and insect friends – will be celebrated in a new Family Museum exhibition opening May 26, as the Bettendorf venue hosts the touring family delight Very Eric Carle: A Very Hungry, Quiet, Lonely, Clumsy, Busy Exhibit.
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This feature collects articles published online by Quad Cities-area media outlets and by CapitolFax.com and the state-politics sections of the Des Moines Register and the State Journal-Register.
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Hosted by the Quad Cities Bicycle Club and beginning at 9 a.m., an eargerly anticipated Memorial Day tradition returns for its 53rd year in the May 28 Quad Cities Kwik Star Criterium – a Village of East Davenport event featuring hundreds of adult and youth cyclists participating in 12 bicycle races, with over $10,000 in cash prizes awarded throughout the day.
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Wildlife, history, geology, and more will be explored when River Action hosts presentations in this year's Channel Cat Talks and Riverine Walks – “Explore the River Series” celebrations of the Quad Cities' unique culture and landscape taking place four times weekly from May 29 through September 1.
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“Dancing in the Streets” Streetfest
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Last week’s press conference announcing his latest amendatory veto was, without a doubt, the best press pop Governor Bruce Rauner has had since he fired his top staff last July and brought in that Illinois Policy Institute crowd (whom he also fired).
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“Nothing’s more important for a governor than having a good budget because that allows you to manage the state to do your job.”
Let that recent quote from former Governor Jim Edgar, as reported by the State Journal-Register, sink in for a bit.
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Eastern Illinois University’s legislative liaison Katie Anselment had some strong words for legislators during an Illinois Senate Higher Education Committee hearing last week.
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On April 19, 2018, the Scott County Board of Supervisors (SCBS) voted 3-2 against posting the Board's audio-recorded meetings at both the Board and Auditor Web sites (audio: rcreader.com/y/scbs1). Supervisors Carole Earnhardt-R, Tony Knobbe-R, and Ken Beck-R voted against, while Diane Holst-R and Brinsen Kinzer-D voted in favor of this fundamental public good.
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Four years ago, I mistakenly believed candidate Bruce Rauner would take a page from Governor Rod Blagojevich’s 2014 reelection playbook and immediately bury Governor Pat Quinn under a mountain of negative advertising. Instead, Rauner waited until July 11 to air his first general-election TV ad.
So what’s it gonna be this year?
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“Four cities, four past romances, four stories to be told (four nearly identical hotel rooms).” That's the premise behind the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Barn Owl presentation of Neil LaBute's Some Girl(s), and alternating between the emotionally draining, bitingly funny, viciously cynical, and surprisingly engaging, the comedy/drama might best be described as a how-to manual on how not to make amends with your past relationships.
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Adapted from the literary phenomenon and Clint Eastwood's Oscar-nominated movie, the musical version of The Bridges of Madison County makes its Quad Cities debut at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse May 23 through July 14 – a rare romantic drama at the venue whose Broadway production was praised by the Associated Press for its “superb, thrilling score,” and by Time Out NY for being “a new work that plays like a classic.”
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A Southern-fried slapstick comedy by the popular playwriting team of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten, the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's Dearly Beloved, from May 31 through June 10, will serve as the second title in the venue's 50th-anniversary season of audience-favorite revivals, the show's 2008 presentation praised by the River Cities' Reader as “charming and funny and unfailingly likable,” as well as “a terrific amount of fun.”
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Davenport's QC Theatre Workshop will conclude its 2017-18 season with high spirits, and spirited performers acting high, in the June 1 through 17 run of the camp-classic musical comedy Reefer Madness, a tune-filled blast that the Chicago Tribune's Chris Jones called “very fresh and funny” and “clever enough to get me giggling verily, merrily withough any external aids whatsoever.”
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Called “witty and wacky” by the London Sunday Telegraph, “verbally dexterous and physically agile” by the Boston Globe, and “English class meets Monty Python” by the Washington Post, Moline's new Spotlight Theatre debuts the first of its stage productions with the June 1 through 10 run of All the Great Books (Abridged), a rollicking farce by the Reduced Shakespeare Company team of Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor.
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Lauded by The Guardian for her “grinding blues, sleazy jazz, and bracing rock with punk immediacy and pop appeal,” Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Shilpa Ray headlines a Moeller Nights concert on May 26, her signature vocal style described by the Star-Ledger as a “big-voiced blues-rock howler,” and summed up in four words by the New York Times: “That scream is primal!”
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“Ever wonder what a traditional lounge singer would sound like backed up by a punk band?” asked the Los Angeles Times. “The Smoking Popes take that concept one step further: They've created a unique kind of music that some listeneres are describing as 'hyperkinetic tear-jerkers.'” That description is as accurate today as it was during the band's early-'90s beginnings, as The Smoking Popes will prove when the pop-punk and alt-rock musicians play Davenport's Redstone Room on June 1.
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Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn kicks off its summer season with rocking tunes and rollicking laughs on June 1 and 2, as the venue and Moeller Nights present more than a dozen acts in the Turnbuckle II Comedy & Music Festival, described on the venue's Web site as a weekend with “the greatest stand-up comedians in America and the choicest fun-loving rock and roll bands, along with the exploits of elbow-throwing, spandex-trunk-wearing professional wrestlers.”
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Well-known by his stage name JBM, Canadian folk- and pop-rock singer/songwriter Jesse Marchant headlines a Moeller Nights concert on June 3, the artist having been praised by Filter magazine for his “heartfelt compositions” and “meticulous and carefully crafted sound,” and by ClubDistrict.com for creating a signature style “as weathered and wise as an old home.”
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Lauded by SputnikMusic.com for her “carefree, earthy experimentalism” and “the polarized emotions she inspires,” dream-pop singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Carla dal Forno brings her North American tour to Rozz-Tox on June 3, the artist's 2016 album You Know What It's Like revered by Pitchfork.com for being a “smoky and ominous” work that “simmers, both musically and thematically, with powerful undercurrents.”
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As I recall, there aren't any overt references to the Guardians of the Galaxy in Deadpool 2 – which is kind of astonishing given that the movie's name-dropping antihero verbally side-swipes fellow Marvel figures ranging from Wolverine to Charles Xavier to the Winter Soldier to a certain Avenger MIA from Infinity War. (After momentarily losing his powers of invincibility here, our snarky protagonist dejectedly mutters, “Just give me a bow and arrow and I'm Hawkeye.”) Yet it's nearly impossible not to be reminded of the Guardians flicks while watching director David Leitch's hyper-violent comedy sequel, because if you thought the comic-book adventures of Chris Pratt and company boasted their genre's most ridiculously entertaining song scores, you were right … until now, that is.
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The aging-friends comedy Book Club stars Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen as … . I'm sorry, but does it even matter? There are precisely zero circumstances under which I, or really any longtime movie fan, wouldn't want to watch this phenomenal acting quartet together on-screen, even if their material were as insipid as Book Club's keeps threatening to be.
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In Life of the Party, Melissa McCarthy plays the doting mother of a college senior who, after being dumped by her husband of 20-plus years, pursues her dream of an archeology degree by enrolling in her daughter's university. I consequently expected 90-odd minutes of campus slapstick as well-meaning, accident-prone, profoundly uncool Mom mortifies her kid in classrooms and at Greek mixers and whatnot – just like the trailers indicated, and just like in the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield hit Back to School. But amazingly, that's not what we get. It turns out that instead of comedic stakes involving a child's embarrassment, there aren't any stakes at all.
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Charlize Theron is nearly always great, and few of her movies have needed her to be great quite as much as Tully, a domestic dramedy that only works – to the extent that it works at all – because of the performer's ferocious, at times truly frightening emotional commitment.
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What can I say about Avengers: Infinity War? I'm genuinely asking: What, this early in the film's run, can I possibly say about Marvel's rabidly awaited comic-book adventure that wouldn't somehow be deemed a spoiler? Maybe it's best to begin gently, not by reviewing the film, but by reviewing the audience. Because even if I didn't enjoy what transpired on-screen – and I generally did, and quite a lot – the crowd reactions at my sold-out 7 p.m. IMAX screening on April 26 would've made the whole experience worthwhile.
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Familiar characters, objects, and themes will blend in a completely out-of-this-world way when the Figge Art Museum, from June 9 through September 2, houses the exhibition Steve Banks: Pop Culture Palimpsest, a comprehensive installation by the Quad Cities artist. As is stated on the Figge Web site: “Like an archaeologist digging through layers of pop-culture ash, Banks uncovers iconic examples of high and low art which he then rearranges and re-covers in complex and entertaining constructions.”
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A landmark work by renowned painter Georgia O'Keefe will be on display in the Figge's American Scene Gallery beginning January 23, as the artist's 1924 Flower Abstraction arrives on generous loan from New York's Whitney Museum of American Art.
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From April 28 through June 21, the wonders of the great outdoors, and the creatures who make their homes there, will be celebrated in the latest exhibition at Bettendorf's Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy: An Intimate Encounter with Nature, featuring evocative paintings by Mary Kline Misol and expressive photographs by Larry Mendenhall.
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Artworks boasting the strange, the familiar, and the strangely familiar will be on display at Rock Island's Quad City Arts Center May 11 through June 22, with illustrative imagery and bright colors employed to communicate ideas about objects, environments, and concepts in the charming, humorous exhibits Karmageddon, featuring mixed media by David Balluff, and News Anchors with Nabisco, showcasing paintings by Greg Dickinson.
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Highlighting nearly 30 examples of solo pieces, collaborations, and innovations within the art form, the Figge Art Museum's new exhibition Steve Sinner: Master Woodturner will, from February 17 through June 24, showcase the talents of the Omaha native and Bettendorf resident whose beautiful, hand-crafted works can be found in galleries and collections from California to Ohio to New York.
