Described by the Washington Post as “the perfect balance of bizarreness, comedy, and horror,” director Tim Burton's Oscar-winning supernatural slapstick Beetlejuice is the focus of the latest trivia might at Bettendorf venue The Tangled Wood, the interactive October 26 event inviting attendees to share their knowledge of this unforgettable movie entertainment that went on to spawn video games, an animated TV series, and even a Tony-nominated Broadway musical.
The life of one of the most notorious – and frequently most vilified – figures in American history will be explored on October 26 when the Moline Public Library hosts the hour-long solo performance Lizzie Borden, a virtual presentation in which Leslie Goddard, Ph.D., portrays the Massachusetts native tried for, and acquitted of, the 1892 ax murders of her father and stepmother.
Appearing in an October 27 program presented by the Rock Island and Moline Public Libraries, bestselling author Chris Bohjalian will discuss his latest novel Hour of the Witch, this literary talent also the author of acclaimed works including Midwives, Skeletons of Eden, and The Flight Attendant, the latter of which was adapted last year into an Emmy Award-nominated HBO series starring The Big Bang Theory's Kaley Cuoco.
A busy and much-admired comedian familiar from film, television, podcasts, and numerous standup specials, Steve Byrne brings his national tour to Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Resort Rhythm Room on October 28, the observational-comedy raconteur noted for making no fewer than 10 appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Exploring popular and beloved Western entertainments ranging from Red River to Wagon Train to Pale Rider to Lonesome Dove, the November 3 program Cowboy Courage: Westerns & the Portrayal of Bravery will feature author and Black Hawk College professor William Hampes discussing themes of justice, redemption, and more in a special in-person/virtual lecture hosted by the Davenport Public Library's Eastern Avenue branch.
It has been a foregone conclusion since the official US Census numbers were released in August that the first state legislative-redistricting plan passed back in May would be ruled unconstitutional. And the inevitable happened last week when a federal court tossed out the General Assembly’s spring plan.
An important rule of medicine is that when you’ve properly treated the patient and they are still not improving, then you may have the wrong diagnosis. Furthermore, dogmatically persisting in the wrong diagnosis ultimately results in injury or death to the patient. We are now nearly two years into the “pandemic” and all we have heard from our leaders is the monotonous drumbeat – social distance, wear masks, get vaccinated. In the beginning, they said that masks were dangerous and COVID-19 testing was key to ending the pandemic. Now, municipalities seek to muzzle us all and testing is becoming difficult to find.
The bridge too far in the COVID narrative for medical and science professionals worldwide has finally arrived: denying natural immunity's important role as an integral part of herd immunity to bring this COVID-19 pandemic to heel.
Catholic priest and Chicago community activist Michael Pfleger has now twice called on Governor JB Pritzker to declare a “state of emergency” over his city’s notorious gun-violence problems.
The Illinois House Redistricting Committee held its first hearing last week on new congressional and judicial subcircuit district maps at the Michael Bilandic Building in Chicago. Another half-dozen hearings were scheduled for the following seven days to redraw the maps, which have to be reconfigured after each decennial census.
If Halloween is approaching, it must be time for that annual theatrical command: “Let's do the 'Time Warp' again!” Consequently, the Circa '21 Speakeasy will stage its sixth-annual presentation of the cult-musical smash The Rocky Horror Show from October 22 through 31, treating audiences to live performances of classic songs in this nutty, interactive experience that has been delighting show regulars and virgins alike for close to 50 years.
A masterpiece of world literature evocatively re-imagined for the stage, Riverside Theatre's one-act drama The Grand Inquisitor enjoys an October 21 through 31 run in the University of Iowa's intimate Main Library Gallery, the hypnotic monologue adapted by Marie-Hélène Estienne from the legendary text by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
I was delighted to catch Friday’s opening-night performance of the new musical comedy Disenchanted! at the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse. Directed by Corinne Johnson, with musical direction by Ron May, this show is about the other sides – more disgruntled sides – of the lives of fairytale characters made famous through the wonderful world of Walt Disney, with Snow White and her gang of dissatisfied co-princesses venting their frustrations as storybook/movie characters.
Reviews by Jeff Ashcraft, Patricia Baugh-Riechers, Audra Beals, Pamela Briggs, Dee Canfield, Kim Eastland, Emily Heninger, Heather Herkelman, Paula Jolly, Victoria Navarro, Mark Ruebling, Mike Schulz, Joy Thompson, Oz Torres, Brent Tubbs, Jill (Pearson) Walsh, and Thom White.
A singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose music, according to Pop Matters, is “so unique, abstract, and weirdly logical that it defies all industry-standard pigeonholing,” Minnesota native Dosh headlines an October 26 concert set at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the artist's album Worlds & Wishes praised by NPR as “a series of richly orchestrated, mostly instrumental electronica tracks with a cinematic grandeur.”
A popular jazz, swing, ragtime, and children's musician known for delighting area audiences at the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival, Jazzy Ash delivers three October 27 and 28 public performances as the latest guest in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artist Series, the exuberant singer/songwriter's 2020 album Good Foot praised by Broadway World for providing “powerful vocals, rock-solid musicianship, and good-old-fashioned fun.”
Lauded by Country Swag as an artist who “knows how to perfectly mix fun with heart,” platinum-selling country-music star Scotty McCreery headlines an October 30 concert at Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center, the 28-year-old singer/songwriter's credits including thee chart-topping albums emerging ultimately victorious in the tenth season of American Idol.
Following a successful outdoor performance in the River Music Experience Courtyard this past summer, the Quad Cities musicians of Heads in Motion bring their energetic talents inside Davenport's Redstone Room on October 30, with the 10-piece ensemble paying tribute to Oscar, Grammy, and Tony Award winner David Byrne and his iconic rock outfit Talking Heads.
A trio of sibling singers, songwriters, and instumentalists hailing from Columbia, Missouri, the critically acclaimed touring musicians of the Burney Sisters play a special concert event at Bettendorf's Crawford Brew Works on October 31, with Wide Open Country stating that the young performers “have the talent and wisdom of artists three times their age.”
While it may not be a “complete” entertainment quite yet (and as of this writing, no followup is contractually guaranteed), there's so much that's engaging and inventive and glorious about the Dune world according to Denis Villeneuve that the movie practically nullifies your complaints while they're occurring to you. That's not to say I didn't leave with a few; I just didn't mind them much.
While Ridley Scott's latest is ultimately engrossing, if for deeply complicated and largely upsetting reasons, I couldn't help but find my thoughts also drifting away from its #MeToo angle and toward a familiar fairy tale, as one third of the film is too hot, another third is too cold, and the final third is … . Well, it's not just right, but it certainly believes it's right.
No Time to Die is more of the same – and at 163 minutes, a lot more of the same – but with heightened yet human-scale threat, as well as an emotional urgency that makes the old feel close to new.
Now playing at area theaters.
Expressive, multi-hued works by an esteemed professor of Art and Art History at the University of Iowa will be on display in St. Ambrose University's Catich Gallery, with the venue, from October 25 through December 17. showcasing paintings by Susan Chrysler White, whose artistic creations, as the artist says, are “subjects that I am grappling with as my work moves into more poignantly personal terrain.”
Held in conjunction with the Davenport venue's current exhibition Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking, the Figge Art Museum's virtual curator talk on October 28 will feature fascinating insight provided by learned Blackburn expert Dr. Deborah Cullen-Morales, who will deliver a talk about the innovative and highly influential artist who famously challenged the idea of lithography as a high-craft process.
Outdoor views of the Quad Cities will be admired and enjoyed in a Bettendorf venue when the Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy, through October 30, houses its exhibition Paint the River: Fifth-Annual Plein Air Paint Out – a collection of works by local artists all created outside, and all executed on subject matter along the Mississippi from the I-80 Bridge to the Centennial Bridge on both sides of the river.
New works by a trio of Midwestern talents employing a trio of wildly different artistic mediums are currently on display in the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, with the Moline airport, through November 1, showcasing eye-catching photography by Mark Dierker of Dubuque, Iowa, works on paper by Jamie Foster of Naperville, Illinois, and ceramic wildlife sculpture by Deana Bada Maloney of Downers Grove, Illinois.
The recipient of an Honorary Doctorate in Art and Philosophy from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the visual arts, painter and printmaker Curlee R. Holton and his estimable works will be showcased in a virtual artist talk hosted by the Figge Art Museum, the November 4 event held in conjunction with the Davenport venue's current exhibition Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking.
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