Delivered as part of the Davenport Public Library's virtual 3rd Thursday at Hoover's Presidential Library & Museum programming, the June 17 Zoom webinar Clearing the Static: Herbert Hoover & Early Radio Regulation will find professor Stephen Coon discussing the history of the medium and how regulatory decisions made by Herbert Hoover and others still affect today’s industry, present-day social-media platforms included.
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This feature lists all headlines with links to the articles by date/time published online by Quad Cities-area media outlets and the state-politics sections of the Des Moines Register and the State Journal-Register.
Visit QCAToday.com for a variation on this theme with curated-for-local-content, and categorized headlines from expanded sources.
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A beloved film franchise that inspired a popular Netflix series will be celebrated when Bettendorf venue The Tangled Wood hosts The Karate Kid Trivia Night, with participants at the June 22 event invited to “wax on” their knowledge of Daniel-san, Mr. Miyagi, Cobra Kai, and loads of other touchstones related to the 1984 film classic, its sequels, and its current TV revival.
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Authors of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and more will share their talents and help strengthen the talents of others during the Midwest Writing Center's virtual David R. Collins Writers Conference, a June 24 through 26 celebration of the written word boasting workshops, readings, book pitches, and a keynote address by lauded author Allison Joseph.
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An acclaimed author, public speaker, radio host, and former halfback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Rocky Bleier takes the stage at Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center for the touring sensation The Play with Rocky Bleier, a special June 25 event in which the guest will take audiences from his early years through his professional career and talk about the lessons he learned along the way.
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More than a year of mounting evidence overwhelmingly contradicts the foundation propping up the COVID-19 narrative as a global lethal pandemic. Yet this need-to-know information continues unaddressed, ignored, even denounced by a preponderance of health authorities and the public, suggesting a successful assimilation into what qualifies as a COVID Cult.
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On November 19, 2020, the number of Illinois House Democrats who had publicly stated they would not vote to re-elect Speaker Michael Madigan grew from 12 to 17, meaning that Madigan at that point did not have enough votes to win. By December 1, two more House Democrats, including a member of Madigan’s own leadership team, had turned against him. “The 19” became a real force in Illinois politics.
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I interviewed both House Speaker Chris Welch and Governor JB Pritzker last week, so I thought I’d tell you about one of the overlaps. Speaker Welch followed a man who had been in office for decades, so comparisons are unavoidable. When former House Speaker Michael Madigan was around, we were always playing endless guessing games. What is he really up to? What does he really want? What’s he really trying to say?
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When reading last week’s indictment of Tim Mapes, it’s important to remember that federal prosecutors have been trying to prove that his old boss, former House Speaker Michael Madigan, was directing the effort to allegedly “bribe” him with favors. Madigan’s long-time chief of staff was indicted May 26 for allegedly lying to a federal grand jury and attempting to obstruct the grand jury’s corruption investigation.
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If I had told you during the brief legislative session last May, while the state was still under a stay-at-home order and everything appeared to be collapsing, that Illinois would have an extra $2 billion laying around to pay off the remainder of a $3.2-billion federal loan, you might have thought I was insane. But here we are.
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I feel confident in giving Red two thumbs up, but should you attend for yourself and disagree with me … . Well, I think that’s exactly the point of director Cait Bodenbender’s production: You can choose for yourself as long as you do so from a place of honesty.
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Described by the Hollywood Reporter as “infectiously fun” and a show that exudes “propulsive, nonstop energy,” Smokey Joe's Cafe serves as the second production in the Clinton Area Show Boat Theatre's summer season, its June 17 through 27 run sure to demonstrate why, after more than a quarter-century, this thrilling assemblage of pop standards remains the longest-running musical revue in Broadway history.
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The winner of five Tony Awards for its 1973 debut and four Tonys for its 2013 revival, composer Stephen Schwartz's musical-comedy smash Pippin returns Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse to the presentation of live theatre for the first time since 2019, kick-starting the theatre's 60th-anniversary season with a spectacle-driven extravaganza that ran on Broadway for a staggering 1,944 performances and was deemed “a thrilling piece of eye-popping razzle dazzle” by the New York Post.
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Returning to the presentation of classical theatre in Rock Island's Lincoln Park for the first time since 2019, the venerated stage company Genesius Guild – which originated in 1957 – opens its 2021 season with the June 19 through 27 run of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure (abridged), a 90-minute rendition of the timeless comedy that led River Cities' Reader reviewer Thom White to state, “I ended up laughing harder … than I've ever laughed while watching a Shakespeare performance.”
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Davenport Junior Theatre wraps up its 69th season of theatre “for kids, by kids” with the organization's first in-person production in 15 months: the premiere of playwright Aaron Randolph III’s The True Tale of Robin Hood, a funny and exciting outdoor production, running June 11 through 20, that will be free for patrons and held outside on the Great Lawn of the Annie Wittenmyer Complex.
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Touring in support of his 2020 album Ordinary Madness, a release that American Songwriter called “a brutally honest, blistering tour-de-force,” the legendary blues vocalist/guitarist Walter Trout takes the stage at Davenport's Adler Theatre on June 18, his concert sure to demonstrate why Blues Rock Review deemed him “one of blues' strongest active musicians” whose most recent recording “is consistently great from cover to cover.”
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Two legendary forces in country music – as well as artists who were born fewer than seven months apart – will be celebrated at the Ohnward Fine Arts Center when the Maquoketa venue presents Cash & Cline: Country Royalty Tribute Show, a June 19 stage sensation boasting Johnny-and-Patsy hits performed by Benny Wheels and Lori Gravel.
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A jazz ensemble dedicated to making audiences very happy, and with the band moniker punctuating the “very happy” to prove it, the four gifted musicians of Christopher's Very Happy. Band play Davenport's Redstone Room on June 20, their performance as the latest guests in Polyrhythms' Third Sunday Jazz Series operating from the premise that “now, more than ever, we all need a little more Happy.ness in our lives.”
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Descibed by Jazz Times as an artist who “cooks up a brilliant marriage of blues, jazz, gospel, and soul,” New York Blues Hall of Fame inductee Bruce Katz and his Bruce Katz Band play a June 20 concert sponsored by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society, showcasing the talents that led the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to declare, “This tight ensemble hits all the marks with deadly aim.”
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Touring in support of the band's 2020 release Blood & Stone, an album that New Noise magazine raved “starts off strong and grows stronger with each track,” the Grammy-nominated alternative-metal artists of Sevendust play the East Moline venue The Rust Belt on June 29, performing from a repertoire that includes 13 studio albums, one live album, and 36 singles.
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Had the musical been released last June as originally scheduled, and had there been no pandemic, director Jon M. Chu's film version of In the Heights would no doubt have felt like what it feels like today: a sweet, touching, frequently thrilling bash in which the guest list simply reads “Everybody.” Arriving now, however – and for we Illinoisans, debuting on the very same day the state's COVID-19 restrictions were lifted – Chu's big-screen opus feels like more than a party; it feels like liberation.
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There are two absolutely excellent moments in the new horror film The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Both moments are scary as all get out and boast images that even this longtime genre fan had never seen before, and Julian Hilliard appears to be a remarkable young actor. If director Michael Chaves' fright flick were actually about that kid and his supernatural turmoil, this second sequel might've really been something.
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Like me, you may have been missing the sounds of large movie-going crowds laughing together, or sniffling together, or screaming together. Yet it wasn't until my weekend screening of A Quiet Place Part II that I realized what I've really missed at the cineplex over the past 15 months is the sound – or rather, lack thereof – of a sizable audience making no noise at all.
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Now playing at area theaters.
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The multi-faceted experiences of individuals from America and abroad are being reflected in a pair of new exhibitions at the Quad City Arts Center, with the Rock Island venue, through June 18, presenting art on the walls, on the floor, and hanging from the ceiling courtesy of the Peter Xiao paintings in iNundATIONs and Ioan Marcu's mixed-media sculptures in Immigrants.
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The talents of a gifted painter with two masters degrees from the University of Iowa will be showcased in the latest exhibition at the Figge Art Museum, with the Davenport venue, from June 19 through September 26, housing the exhibition Franklin Evans: Franklinsfootpaths, an installation that will explore elements of Evans' personal history in Iowa while also encouraging new ways of experiencing the Quad Cities museum.
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One of the most expansive exhibitions in the Davenport venue's recent history, with the works on display numbering well over 100, POP Power from Warhol to Koons will enjoy an engagement at the Figge Art Museum June 26 through September 19, treating patrons to explosions of color, unforgettable imagery, and specific artistic visions that have continued to capture the public imagination for more than 50 years.
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Glorious colors and imaginative designs will be gracing the pavement of Rock Island's Schwiebert Riverfront Park in Quad City Arts' 2021 Chalk Art Fest, a June 26 and 27 weekend featuring live music, children's activities, food and drink vendors, and cash prizes, plus, eventually, the recognizable visage of rock legend David Bowie.
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Beautiful works by gifted local artists who also happen to be Quad Cities art professors who also happen to be related will be on display at the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery through June 30, with the Moline gallery housing a pair of exhibitions by a pair of sisters: paintings by Kristin Quinn of Davenport, and ceramic creations by Megan Quinn of Rock Island.
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