The principles of STEM – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – will be explored in phenomenally entertaining fashion via the latest guest in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artists series, with juggler and former Cirque du Soleil performer Greg Kennedy bringing his unique, jaw-dropping talents to the Moline Public Library on February 26 and Moline's Spotlight Theatre on February 28.
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.
One of the Quad Cities' most eagerly anticipated sales events returns to Rock Island's QCCA Expo Center March 1 through 3, as Melting Pot Productions presents the 25th Annual Spring Antique Spectacular Vintage Market, allowing hunters of vintage goods an all-weekend opportunity to shop for a wide range of quality antiques.
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.”
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.
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.
Two "dark money" groups are stepping up to separately promote and attack the new governor's agenda.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
NYC-based brother-brother-sister trio Bailen lands at the Triple Crown Whiskey Bar & Raccoon Motel for a Moeller Nights concert on February 24. While the siblings’ natural synergy as vocalists makes for some thrilling group harmonies and trade-off leads, the band's collective sense of arrangement and production proves to be just as striking.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Cityscapes in Chicago, New York, and numerous other worldwide locations will be on display in the latest exhibition at the Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy, with the venue hosting Robert Reeves: Sounds of the City from February 23 through March 29 – a collection of paintings reflecting the hidden beauty in sights that millions of people likely view as everyday.
An innovative and truly one-of-a-kind artist will delve into the intricacies of his artistic process during a February 28 presentation at the Figge Art Museum, as the Davenport venue hosts a special Artist Talk with New York's Kim Keever, the talent behind the museum's current exhibition Submerged in the Sublime: The Landscape Photography of Kim Keever.
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.
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.
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.
You'll get a rundown of What's Happenin' along with your keys to the Quad Cities' culture.
