Unexpected, dark, and even horrific sides of Scott County history are explored in a 2018 book by John Brassard Jr., and on February 19, the Eastern Iowa author will visit Bettendorf's Crawford Brew Works in order to share real-life tales from his historical offering Murder & Mayhem in Scott County, Iowa.
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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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Race is an issue that, in daily life, can feel like a daunting one to approach. Yet Davenport's Putnam Museum & Science Center is addressing the subject head-on in its new, interactive, and accessible traveling exhibition RACE: Are We So Different? Open to museum guests from January 26 through June 2, RACE aims to help visitors of all ages better understand the origins and manifestations of race and racism in everyday life by investigating race and challenging its misconceptions through the framework of science. And as Putnam President and CEO Kim Findlay says, it's an exhibit designed “to explore race through history, science, and culture – which happen to be the three things the Putnam focuses on.”
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As the noted comedians take on such topics as relationships, dating, parenting, and family life, audiences seeking a Valentine's date of laughter will no doubt find it at Galesburg's Orpheum Theatre February 8 presentation My Funny Valentine, a hilarious he said/she said boasting the standup skills of Seinfeld veteran Pat Hazell and former Miss New Jersey Dena Blizzard.
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Lauded by the Los Angels Times as a hip-hop dance ensemble that's “able to use spins and locking to convey everything from grief to animalism to wisdom,” the touring talents of Antics serve as the latest guests in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artists series, their February 2 engagement at St. Ambrose University demonstrating why a recent performance inspired Explore Dance to rave, “Windmills, acrobatic back-flips, and uprock that oozed attitude were some of the dazzling dance feats on display.”
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Governor JB Pritzker's administration has confirmed that its new public pension plan will slash $800 million from the state's scheduled pension payment next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
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Two "dark money" groups are stepping up to separately promote and attack the new governor's agenda.
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On January 28, home invaders murdered 58-year-old Rhogena Nicholas and 59-year-old Dennis Tuttle of Houston, Texas. Nicholas and Tuttle wounded five of the (numerous) armed burglars before being slain.
That's not how the news accounts put it, of course. Typical headline (from the Houston Chronicle): "4 HPD officers shot in southeast Houston narcotics operation, a fifth injured."
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Uncle Sam wants you.
Correction: Uncle Sam wants your DNA.
Actually, if the government gets its hands on your DNA, they as good as have you in their clutches.
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We've known for weeks now that the FBI recorded Chicago Alderman Ed Burke's mobile-phone conversations over a period of eight months, listening in on 9,475 calls. And then we discovered that the feds had wired up Chicago Alderman Danny Solis during his own conversations with Burke.
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Friday's opening-night performance of A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder at the Spotlight Theatre was hilarious, with a richly talented company of performers that blended together extremely well. This musical comedy was full of clever slapstick routines and catchy tunes executed by terrific actors who also have strong singing voices, and director Brent Tubbs did an outstanding job delivering a satisfying production that is sure to make you chuckle.
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Is Nora, the protagonist of Henrik Ibsen's classic drama A Doll's House, a hero or a villain? Given that the play ends with her walking out on her husband and children seemingly forever, it’s a theme that’s been discussed since 1897, and one that the QC Theatre Workshop seeks to continue with its local premiere of A Doll’s House, Part 2, directed by Dave Bonde.
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For the third year in a row, the Center for Living Arts, the Penguin Project of the Quad Cities, and Augustana College's theatre department are teaming up to help turn kids into stage stars, which they'll do in the February 22 through March 3 Brunner Theatre Center run of Seussical Jr. – a production that boasts a cast composed of talented youths with special needs.
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Running February 27 through April 6 at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, playwright Robin Hawdon's slapstick riot Diamonds & Divas: A Murderous Fiasco takes audiences away from winter weather and abroad to the sunny provinces of the Cannes Film Festival, with the Rock Island venue the first professional theatre in the United States ever to produce this madcap comedy.
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A series of fractured fairytales that families can dance to will delight audiences from February 16 through 24, as Davenport Junior Theatre stages the area premiere of Aesop's Falables (A Rock Musical), a student-performed entertainment in which Aesop's familiar figures rebel against their stereotypes and teach valuable lessons along the way.
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Dreamer Boy, the '80s-worshipping white-boy-R&B/“lo-fi hip-hop beats to relax and study to”-core project of Nashville-based singer Zach Taylor, plays a Moeller Nights concert at Davenport's Triple Crown Whiskey Bar & Raccoon Motel on February 20.
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Two legendary music icons – both of them 2000 inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – will share the stage at Moline's TaxSlayer Center on February 23, with the venue delivering the long-awaited pairing of folk and Americana singer/songwriter James Taylor, recipient of a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom, and blues-rock star Bonnie Raitt, winner of the National Guitar Museum's 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award.
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A two-time Blues Music Award winner playing Kavanaugh's Hilltop Bar & Grill on February 23, Chicago-based bass player Biscuit Miller and his ensemble The Mix headline the latest concert event co-sponsored by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society, treating fans to an electrifying touring act that Downbeat magazine labelled “a real crowd-pleaser.”
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Masterpieces by a trio of timeless composers – Brahms, Beethoven, and Schumann – will be celebrated in Augustana College's February 23 concert event German Giants, the second WVIK/QCSO Signature Series event in the radio station's and Quad City Symphony Orchestra's 2019 season, and a musical testament to the skills of Marian Lee on piano and Naha Greenholtz on violin.
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A five-piece ensemble that, according to WSUM.org, “incorporates rock, bluegrass, jazz, and a little folk, creating nothing but an upbeat atmosphere,” the Chicago-based musicians of Old Shoe play Davenport's Redstone Room on February 23 in support of their most recent release Country Home, a compilation of 13 original tracks praised by GratefulWeb.com for the songs' ability to “paint a diverse landscape of American life.”
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This year's Academy Awards telecast is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. CST on Sunday, February 24, with no one serving as the ABC broadcast's host for the first time since the largely disastrous 1989 ceremony that opened with a musical duet for Rob Lowe and Snow White. The mind boggles at what we might be in store for this time around.
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Among the front-runners for this year's Best Picture Oscar are a previous Academy Award winner's loving salute to his childhood nanny; a period bio-pic about revered music icons; a feel-good dramedy in the vein of Driving Miss Daisy; and Spike Lee's cinematic confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan that ends with searing indictments of the 2017 rally/riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, and, by extension, the president of the United States.
Guess which of these films, at present, is the least controversial.
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Not two weeks ago, in What Men Want, Taraji P. Henson suffered a conk on the noggin and woke with the ability to hear men's secret thoughts. Now, in Isn't It Romantic, it's Rebel Wilson who's accidentally knocked unconscious, awakening to find her formerly grim world turned into a sunny, sprightly romantic comedy. As trends go, this one's a little disturbing: Just how much cranial damage must our female stars endure for the sake of high-concept popcorn entertainment?
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Hollywood unveiled a quartet of new releases over the weekend – a comedy-hit reboot, a high-concept horror flick, a fourth franchise installment, and a Liam Neeson revenge thriller – and the only thing that seemed to link them was that they were all examples of types of movies that generally aren't good. But surprise! They were actually all good, if of undeniably varying levels of goodness.
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Culled from more than 100 hours of documentary footage from more than 100 years ago, Peter Jackson's World War I documentary They Shall Not Grow Old is an almost unquestionably astounding achievement – and not merely because what began as a two-day special engagement in December made so much money, and was so beloved by patrons, that it's currently enjoying a full, and fully deserved, theatrical run.
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One of the most renowned artisans in American history, and the beautiful works that bear his name, will be celebrated in a February 16 through May 19 traveling exhibition at the Figge Art Museum, with the Davenport venue showcasing sublime colors and the glorious fragility of glass in Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection.
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Evocative works by a Quad Cities artist of more than three decades will be on display at the Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy from January 26 through February 23, as the Bettendorf venue showcases mergers of line, design, and print-making in the new exhibit Under Construction: Recent Works by Corrine Smith.
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In addition to serving as the education coordinator for Bettendorf's Family Museum, a job that he says “allows me to be creative in the design of art, science, and play activities,” Glenn Boyles is a gifted artist working primarily in painting and drawing, and works by this gifted Marycrest University alumnus will be on display at the Moline Centre Station Gallery from December 1 through February 28.
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Watercolors, sculptures, mono-prints, and more will be on display in the first Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery exhibition of 2019, with the January 3 through February 28 artistic showcase boasting works by Linda Buechting of Quincy, Illinois, Paul Nitsche of Ridgeway, Wisconsin, and Corrine Smith of Rock Island.
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The personal beliefs and significant experiences of two Iowa-based artisans will be expressed in a fascinating pair of Quad City Arts Center Gallery exhibitions February 1 through March 22: Esprit De Corps: The Brotherhood of Paratroopers, Rangers, & Special Forces at War by Eldridge painter Kenneth Cunningham, and Sophisticated Disobedience by Davenport's stpray-paint-college artist Brian Schulz.
