Nearly 20 local, regional, and national comedians will be bringing the funny to this year's Alternating Currents festival, with August 23 and 24 standup sets – plus one hilariously awful movie – scheduled to make patrons roar with laughter at four venues in downtown Davenport.
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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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Alternating Currents is an area celebration of the finest in art, music, comedy, and film. But from August 22 through 25, the weekend festival also has events scheduled in downtown Davenport that don't precisely fit into any of those four categories – including children's activities, sporting entertainments, forums, sales, and more.
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In an era in which video games and cartoons take up a lot of children’s time, Bettendorf's Family Museum is prepared to combat childhood inertia with its new summer exhibition Run! Jump! Fly! Adventures in Action, the interactive exhibit – running June 8 through September 8 – in which children and adults can explore activities such as kung fu, surfing, snowboarding, yoga, and horizontal climbing.
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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 28 through August 31.
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The Illinois AFL-CIO hosted its annual State Fair reception last week. The highlight was probably a speech by Governor JB Pritzker, who thanked his audience of union leaders for their support in the 2018 campaign and for their help passing an enormous amount of legislation during his first session of the General Assembly.
But there was also some real news. The event was the last time Michael Carrigan attended as the organization's president.
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When Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan announced in February 2018 that he'd fired Kevin Quinn, the brother of Marty Quinn, Madigan's 13th-ward alderman and political general, he said he made the decision because of Quinn's "inappropriate conduct" with Alaina Hampton, a political consultant whom he called a "courageous woman." Hampton had come forward with allegations of sexual harassment by Quinn and retaliation by Madigan's organization.
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Most state legislators don't have to worry about next year's general election. The combination of gerrymandering and the simple fact that many of the state's regions are dominated by one party or the other pretty much guarantees that all but a handful of incumbents will sail through on the November ballot.
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"Sterigenics should be completely shut down until we determine it can operate safely," gubernatorial candidate JB Pritzker tweeted last October.
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For the second time this year, House Republican Leader Jim Durkin has stripped one of his Party members’ access to a House communications staffer.
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The roots of the play The 39 Steps were in a 1915 magazine serial by Scottish novelist John Buchan, which became a popular novel, which spawned four more books about its protagonist. It was adapted for film three times, notably (and to great acclaim) by Alfred Hitchcock, and once for television. The first version of the play, written by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon and billed as a "parody," toured in 1995. Patrick Barlow consequently rewrote their script, premiering his adaptation in London in 2005. His version hopped the pond to become a long-running Broadway smash, nominated for six Tonys in 2008 (including Best Play) and winning two. This month, more than 100 years later, a form of Buchan's story is playing live at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre. And I highly recommend you see this ingeniously staged, well-performed lark of a show.
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The Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse Bootleggers have a cult following of enthusiastic fans that are very passionate about, and dedicated to, these talented performers who also double as the theatre's efficient wait staff, and Thursday's opening-night presentation of the group's mainstage show The Best of the Bootleggers certainly did not disappoint. There was a lot of clapping and singing along as 12 of the most talented Booties I've ever seen delivered a variety of musical numbers that left our audience longing for more.
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Madness. It was madness how much fun I had at the July 25 preview performance of the interactive mystery comedy Shear Madness at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse.
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Who doesn't like a singing and dancing nun? Because everyone seemed to be delighted at Thursday night's preview of Quad City Music Guild's Sister Act. The evening was filled with comedy and profound contemplation as the habit-wearing sisters praised the Lord in song and dance proclaiming, "It's good to be a nun!"
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Assassins, at the Black Box Theatre, is the cheeriest musical about unhappy people who made bad choices that I've ever seen. And prior to Thursday's performance, I didn't know it was literally about those who killed American presidents, or tried to – I just saw "music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim" and said, "I'm in."
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Delivering what the Boston Globe called “a spectacular combination of fervent gospel, Ike & Tina-style R&B, and sweet, steel-flecked country soul,” the married musicians of The War & Treaty – Michael and Tanya Trotter – perform locally as Moeller Nights headliners on August 21, demonstrating why the Associated Press deemed them “a powerhouse R&B duo who sound as though they were born to sing together.”
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Headlined by an Adler Theatre engagement with Keller Williams' Grateful Grass and Max Weinberg's Jukebox on August 22, this year's Alternating Currents festival – boasting more than 100 events and performances at 16 Quad Cities venues – will feature concert sets with more than three dozen bands and solo performers from Thursday through Sunday, their music encompassing every genre from rock to folk to jazz to country.
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A unique evening of legendary football players discussing their NFL careers in between performances of rock, Motown, and country classics will take place at Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Resort on August 24, with the Chicago 6 Band treating audiences to musical memories and inside stories delivered by former Chicago Bear Dan Hampton and his Super Bowl-winning teammates Otis Wilson and Steve McMichael.
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Lauded by Sounds Like Nashville for “her warm, yet driving, vocal approach” that “turns the listener on an emotional dime,” country-music singer/songwriter enjoys an August 24 headliner concert at the Rock Island Brewing Company, her most recent album Trophy described by Country Exclusive as “filled with honest, clever songwriting” that shows “an artist being vulnerable and sharing a part of herself with listeners through her music.”
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Austin-based Americana one-man-band Shakey Graves and omni-rock stalwarts Dr. Dog play The Rust Belt on August 19.
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Even though the raunchy comedy Good Boys, like the Jonah Hill/Michael Cera slapstick Superbad, is about nerdy best friends prepping for a party and boasts Superbad screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as producers, I didn't spend much time at the new film reflecting on its 2007 cousin. I did, however, think a lot about Bugsy Malone, Alan Parker's 1976 kiddie musical that imagined a stereotypical 1930s gangster flick cast entirely with teens and tweens.
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Short works, feature-length offerings, comedy classics, documentaries, an awards party, and a Q & A with Midwestern success stories are just some what film fans can look forward to at this year's Alternating Currents festival, with more than two dozen screenings and events scheduled at three downtown-Davenport locales.
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Imperiled teens. Cancer. Mob hits. More cancer. A rape charge. More imperiled teens.
And how was your weekend?
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Ordinarily, it's the sort of movie I'd casually dispose of in a couple hundred words at the end of a series of reviews – a chaser after time spent on more worthy subjects. This past weekend, though, saw Hobbs & Shaw the only new offering in wide release, so I suppose a few hundred extra words are in order. That shouldn't be a problem, though. There's so much here to hate.
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There are certain things, many things, we've come to expect from a Quentin Tarantino movie, and unless John Travolta is jump-starting one with a shot of adrenaline, heart isn't exactly among them. That's why the primary shock of the writer/director's ninth feature Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is that it's positively teeming with heart – an unabashed love letter to Tinseltown fringe figures of a bygone era who, as the fairytale title suggests, are eminently deserving of Happily Ever Afters.
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Between August 22 and 25, art in a wide variety of mediums will brighten the streets and venues of the 2019 Alternating Currents festival, with the scheduled events in downtown Davenport including an arts & crafts marketplace, a paper-art festival, a pop-up art show, and much more.
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Held in conjunction with the Figge Art Museum's Miracles & Glory Abound exhibition running through September 1, museum staffers will visit the Moline Public Library on August 24 for a special presentation on the exhibit's creator Vanessa German, the Pittsburgh-based artist who inspired the Los Angeles Times to rave, “Strength, physical and spiritual, exudes from her work as if audibly – a proud shout.”
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With the Los Angeles Times raving that “Strength, physical and spiritual, exudes from her work as if audibly – a proud shout,” the Pittsburgh-based artist Vanessa German finds her latest exhibition Miracles & Glory Abound showcased at the Figge Art Museum May 11 through September 1, the artist's works also housed in permanent collections in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Hartford, Connecticut.
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Artists from the Quad City region are, through September 2, transforming the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery with works incorporating neon and video, along with other lighting effects, in the exhibition Electrified – a fascinating showcase boasting vintage automobile signs on loan from K.V. Dahl of Dahl Ford, as well as an interactive exhibit requiring viewers to climb onto a vintage bicycle and pedal in order to illuminate a display courtesy of Bill Wohlford and Ron Kessel.
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Works by a critically acclaimed, commercially successful, and absolutely singular talent will be on display at Davenport's Figge Art Museum June 8 through September 29, with the exhibit Vik Muniz: Hand Remade showcasing the one-of-a-kind gifts of the Brazilian photographer and mixed-media artist who has inspired both global raves and an Academy Award-nominated documentary feature.
