Dino Hayz is the creative director and co-owner of the Center for Living Arts, the Rock Island-based venue that, since 2006, has offered music and theatre (and musical theatre) classes for ages 18 and under, and has produced such stage presentations as Schoolhouse Rock Live! and Disney's High School Musical.

Consequently, Hayz says that he and his performers have a pretty fair idea of how patrons might react to the Center's latest theatrical offering.

"When we're in rehearsal," says Hayz, "at the end of Act I, we always say, 'A-a-and ... blackout. Actors off, lights up, a good third of the audience walks out the door ... ."

Music

VOCES8

Galvin Fine Arts Center

Saturday, March 3, 7:30 p.m.

For the final performers in its 2011-12 Visiting Artists Series, Quad City Arts has booked an area residency with the renowned a cappella singers of VOCES8, and a glance at the group's three most recent CDs shows its tracks to include "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square," "Kyrie from the Mass for Four Voices," "Shenandoah," "Me & My Shadow," "Wir glauben an ainen Gott," and "Jailhouse Rock." Because apparently, it would've killed Quad City Arts to find performers with range.

After compiling the list of stage presentations coming to area venues this spring, three things became immediately clear.

(1) Audiences are getting a rather intimidating number of options, with (at last count) no fewer than 57 plays or musicals scheduled to open between March 1 and May 31.

(2) Audiences are getting a rather incredible variety of options - everything from a comedy by Woody Allen to a musical by Woody Guthrie.

(3) Absolutely none of these numerous and diverse theatrical productions features me.

While drying your eyes, though, do your best to get excited about this spring's lineup anyway ... which, I hasten to add, shouldn't be very difficult.

[Author's note: Well, considering that these original Oscar predictions are in print, I guess I'm stuck with them, right? Au contraire! Over the 13 days since this article was originally published online, Hollywood's arts & crafts guilds announced their winners, the British Academy of Film & Television Awards (BAFTA) were handed out, and numerous prognosticators far more in-the-loop than I am have weighed in. And so I'm finally prepared to offer my absolute, final, turn-in-your-Oscar-pool-guesses-now choices, having changed my original guesses on a full seven of the 24 categories. My final picks, along with some commentary, follow the originally published predictions. And don't forget to follow my reactions to the ceremony at Twitter.com/MikeSchulzNow. Let's see how awful my spelling gets as the night rolls on and I get more and more dru- ... ! Um-m-m ... . More and more excited, I mean!]

After tying my personal best two years ago, when I guessed correctly in 18 of the 24 individual Academy Award races, I experienced a rather sizable setback in 2011, amassing only 13 right. How am I feeling about my predictions this year?

Well ... I've certainly felt worse.