Boasting solos and ensemble numbers from Broadway hits, pop-music smashes, and the beloved Disney canon, The Best of the Bootleggers: Post-COVID Edition will showcase the sensational professional talents of the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's staffers, the August 10 and 17 performances featuring memorable numbers delivered by one of only two performing waits staffs in dinner theatres nationwide.

Rich and expressive works by a former Muscatine High School teacher who later taught at Augustana College will be on display at the Muscatine Art Center through October 29, when the venue hosts an exhibition of new photographs by John Deason, an Iowa talent who, at the age of seven and following a move to Sioux City, became friends with a neighbor boy whose father was a talented photographer named Grant Jensen.

Beautiful and evocative works by an orthopedic surgeon pursuing a Studio Arts degree at the University of Iowa will be on display at the Muscatine Art Center through March 10, when the venue hosts an exhibition of new mixed-media works by Cory Christiansen, an Iowa talent who shared a special bond with noted Muscatine printmaker Jon Fasanelli-Cawelti, whose works will be on display at the Art Center in September.

An official selection for July's IUGTE 20th Anniversary event in Austria and next month's Fort Worth Fringe Festival, Shelley Cooper's one-woman musical Jenny Lind Presents P.T. Barnum enjoys a three-performance run at Moline's Black Box Theatre from August 11 through 13, its creator/star's previous solo productions in the area including popular presentations of Mary & Ethel: How I Learned to Sing and La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas.

Praised by Broadway World as "a wonderful night of theatre" and by NBC2 as a work that "evokes memories and warm feelings with a lot of laugh-out-loud moments," author Joe DiPietro's warmhearted comedy Over the River & Through the Woods enjoys an August 17 through 27 engagement at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre, its Geneseo run sure to demonstrate why Chicago Critic raved, "At any stage of life – as child, young adult, parent, or grandparent – this charming play will touch your heart.

Designed for fans of the hit Coen-brothers film O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Circa ‘21 Dinner Playhouse favorite Southern Crossroads, the Mockingbird on Main's bluegrass musical Big Rock Candy Mountain will receive an August 17 through 20 engagement at Moline's Black Box Theatre, its classic tunes including such iconic numbers as “House of the Rising Sun,” “Keep on the Sunny Side of Life,” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”

Lauded by Time Out New York for its “infectiously energetic 1960s tunes” and by The New Yorker for its “well-judged humor and elegant strokes of observation,” the Broadway-musical smash Jersey Boys – running August 17 through 27 – closes the 2023 summer season at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse, this multiple Tony Award winner a show that, according to Broadway World, “rousingly recreates the catchy songs, convoluted lives, and roller-coaster careers of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.”

Taking place in two cities, two states, and more than two dozen venues, the popular summertime traveling festival Alternating Currents returns to Davenport and Rock Island from August 17 through 20, a Quad Cities celebration of music, film, comedy, and visual arts boasting more than 100 musical performances, comedy sets, film screenings, local art displays, and even pro-wrestling.

German toys have had a significant impact on the world's toy industry, particularly in the areas of design and innovation, and through January 7, these wondrous innovations will be on display in Klassiks for Kinder: German Toys with Joy, an interactive, family-themed exhibition housed in Davenport's German American Heritage Center.

Touring internationally with his "The Age of JAJ" tour that Curtain Call Broadway deemed "a fantastic hour of comedy that will leave you in awe," actor, standup, and current Saturday Night Live performer James Austin Johnson plays Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn on August 17, treating patrons to his uniquely hilarious worldview and talents for impersonation that find him, on SNL, doing sketch-length imitations of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

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