Arriving in advance of Halloween, the latest book by local authors Michael McCarty and Mark McLaughlin will explore roughly two dozen purportedly haunted locales in Ghosts of the Quad Cities, with the co-writers, on September 28, appearing at Davenport's The Book Rack to sign copies of this new work highlighting the supernatural histories of many of our area's most well-known sites.
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.
Ballet Quad Cities' 2019-20 season will open with three performances of the debuting presentation MusicMoves, a joyous collection of dance vignettes being staged September 13 through 15. But the start of a new season isn't the only thing new about the professional dance company's latest production, which will also boast all-new choreography, a new venue (Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center), and, in the piece “Shake the Muse,” even a new approach to creating a dance.
A premier convention for fans of all things horror, the Midwest Monster Fest takes over Moline's Spotlight Event Center on September 14 and 15 – a terror- and fun-filled weekend filled with special guests, vendors, panel discussions, screenings, contests, challenges, and, in celebration of the movie's 45th anniversary, appearances by John Dugan, Teri McMinn, and Ed Neal of Tobe Hooper's 1974 genre classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
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.
The governor's top budget people sent a memo last week to agency directors giving them a heads-up about what will be required in their annual budget-request submissions. They are not easy-peasy asks.
Representative David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) announced last week that he will not seek reelection. Instead, he said he'll likely be making a 2022 statewide bid for either US Senate against Senator Tammy Duckworth or Secretary of State if Jesse White retires.
He may not be a household name, but Representative McSweeney has been a huge thorn in Republican leadership's side since he first ran for the Illinois House in the 2012 primary.
The statement issued by Governor JB Pritzker's office last Thursday night had some good advice for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who gave what was billed as a "State of the City" address earlier that evening. Mayor Lightfoot had outlined the challenges facing the city, including an $838-million budget deficit and her need for Illinois government's help in changing some state laws to allow her to raise more tax revenues.
You don't have to read past the first sentence of Tim Mapes' statement last week to see one of the core problems with the way he ran the Illinois House Democratic operation. Mapes was responding to an investigative report commissioned by House Speaker Michael Madigan to get to the bottom of allegations of sexual harassment and bullying in his Statehouse operation.
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.
With the Washington Post calling the play “mystical, arresting, and quirkily amusing” and the New York Daily News deeming it “irresistibly odd and exciting,” the dark romance Gruesome Playground Injuries, from September 20 through October 6, serves as the opening production for the 2019-20 season at Davenport's QC Theatre Workshop, its author Rajiv Joseph described by the New York Times as “an artist of original talent” with a “darkly funny, piquant sensibility.”
As I parked in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre lot, I noticed a deer lingering in the tree line. The sight made me chuckle, as Bambi apparently missed the memo that the show currently playing is The Wolves. Or maybe it knew the title refers to a girl’s indoor-soccer team named after the big, bad woodland creature.
The Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Singin' in the Rain will have you laughin' at clouds, no matter how dark the weather. The 1983 musical is based on the beloved 1952 film, with its screenplay (and the musical's book) by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed writing music and lyrics for most of its tunes, many of which are borrowed from 1920s and 1930s films (by MGM, natch, which concocted this film). Thus, the show is in many ways a jukebox musical, and Circa '21's production uses the 2012 revival's script, which is a pared-down and shuffled version of the original.
I always like rooting for the underdog, and Saturday’s matinée performance of Disney’s Newsies: The Musical at the Timber Lake Playhouse is a David-versus-Goliath story full of vibrant and energetic dancing, coupled with excellent singing, as the cast of 27 took on this delightful Broadway smash. I especially enjoyed the scenic design by David Goldstein – an expanded set of rusty steel bars that were constructed into high platforms and stairs, reminding me of Elvis Presley's Jailhouse Rock set.
Described by The Village Voice as “a delightful meditation on society, sex, and soccer” and by The Hollywood Reporter as “a dizzying whirl of attitude, anxiety, and adolescent hormonal volatility,” The Wolves makes its area debut at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre September 13 through 22, this funny and moving 2016 work inspiring the New York Times to rave “The scary, exhilarating brightness of raw adolescence emanates from every scene of this uncannily assured first play by Sarah DeLappe.”
Hugely popular touring musicians who have opened for the likes of Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris, the Zac Brown Band, and the Goo Goo Dolls, the chart-topping Celtic-rock talents of Gaelic Storm perform a September 20 concert at Davenport's Redstone Room, this lauded quintet of vocalists and multi-instrumentalists hailed by the Examiner for their “high energy, consistent interaction with the audience, and exceptional musical performance.”
Praised by R2 magazine for their “raw and grooving bluegrass music played with the grace and sophistication of a classical string quartet,” the Canadian musicians of the Andrew Collins Trio open Quad City Arts' 2019-20 Visiting Artists season with several ocal performances including a September 20 engagement as guests of Davenport's Bucktown Revue, the Toronto Star calling its bandleader “light of touch, fast of wit, copiously imaginative, and a musical scholar of the highest order.”
A thick bill of contemporary Midwest garage rock and/or dream pop hits East Moline venue The Rust Belt on September 21 as Twin Peaks, Slow Pulp, and Dehd take the stage.
One of the millennium's most successful and acclaimed alternative-metal and hard-rock acts, the chart-topping, Grammy-nominated Godsmack lands at Moline's TaxSlayer Center on September 22, the musicians' 2018 album When Legends Rise praised by AllMusic.com as “a highly enjoyable one that stirs the soul in unexpected ways,” with the band itself deemed “reinvigorated, confident, and no less defiant than they were in 1998.”
The New Orleans-based New Wave synth-pop outfit Video Age lands at Rozz-Tox on September 22, performing on a bill with Chicago's indie-psych-rock artist J Fernandez.
Judging by reports from the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, which wrapped on September 15, the true shocker of this year's fest wasn't that intimate chamber drama The Two Popes turned out to be a ton of fun (though apparently it was) or that the already-notorious Joker didn't receive nearly the acclaim that greeted its eight-minute-standing-ovation debut in Venice (though apparently it didn't) or that the Audience Award – which, last year, was awarded to eventual Best Picture Oscar winner Green Book – went to the wildly divisive Hitler comedy Jojo Rabbit. (Wha-a-a-a-a?!?) It was that the heftiest Oscar buzz went to Jennifer Lopez, of all people, for playing, of all things, a larcenous stripper in writer/director Lorene Scafaria's Hustlers.
As with its predecessor, the best thing about director Andy Muschietti's horror sequel It Chapter Two is its murderous clown Pennywise, a role again acted to perfection by Bill Skarsgård. The worst thing, unfortunately, is everything else.
And so, with the passing of Labor Day, the summer-movie season of 2019 officially comes to an end. Not with a bang, but rather, as is annually the case, a whimper – specifically, a pair of releases so thoroughly unpromising that one of our area's two cineplexes didn't bother booking either of them. With that in mind, while we all count the days to It: Chapter Two and the onslaught of hopefully better fall flicks, let's take a moment to look at two films you likely didn't see this past weekend … .
In the new action thriller Angel Has Fallen, Gerard Butler plays Secret Service agent Mike Banning for the third time, having already portrayed this gruff, dyspeptic, über-violent patriot in 2013's Olympus Has Fallen and 2016's London Has Fallen. Considering those were two of the more painfully awful studio releases I've suffered through this decade, director Ric Roman Waugh's second sequel, I presumed, had nowhere to go but up. And blessedly, Angels Has Fallen is indeed less noxious than its predecessors. For a full 20 minutes.
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.
Original works from more than 90 juried regional and national artists, children's activities, a Tabor Home Winery tasting, gourmet food, live music, and additional treats will be on hand at the September 21 and 22 Riverssance Festival of Fine Art, with MidCoast Fine Arts' 32nd-annual Lindsay Park event finding Terry Rathje this year's recipient of the esteemed Harley Award, which honors those who've positively affected the visual arts and artists in the Quad Cities during their lifetimes.
A fascinating exhibition boasting installation work and even a synthetic indoor ice rink will be on display at the Figge Art Museum from September 21 through December 29 when the Davenport venue houses Mia Feuer: Totems of the Anthropocene, its widely acclaimed creator having enjoyed solo exhibitions worldwide from Washington D.C. to London to Calgary.
From September 21 through December 8, a traditional Mexican holiday will be celebrated in high style at Davenport's Figge Art Museum through the exhibition Day of the Dead: The Art of Remembrance, an installation that will explore how we celebrate and remember the lives of our lost loved ones through the collective traditions, art-making, and storytelling that are among its integral elements.
Stunning examples of mixed-media artwork will be on display at Black Hawk College's ArtSpace Gallery from September 30 through November 1 as the venue houses Sarah Rehmer's A Tenuous Space, the latest exhibition by the lauded Illinois artist whose works have been showcased in such esteemed art magazines as Studio Visit, Encaustic Arts, and Shadow & Light.
An artistic showcase for two internationally renowned artists – as well as a homecoming for two graduates of Bettendorf High School – will take place at Bettendorf's Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy from August 31 through September 27, with the exhibition Swangstu celebrating the works of brother-and-sister talents Troy and Holly Swangstu.
You'll get a rundown of What's Happenin' along with your keys to the Quad Cities' culture.
